• There are at least 100,000 undocumented Hispanics residing in the Valley (according to statistics from Metro), which would bring the total number of Hispanics to 550,000.
• Recent Metro reports state that 40 percent of robberies in Las Vegas are committed against Hispanics.
• From July 1 to August 15 of this year, Hispanics were the victims of 76 of the 92 robberies in the northeast region of Las Vegas, according to Metro.
• Of Metro's 2,300-plus officers, less than 10 percent speak practicable Spanish.
• Metro's response to Las Vegas' Spanish-speaking population, the Hispanic American Resource Team (H.A.R.T.), is composed of six full-time members, stationed at three area commands.
What the numbers tell us:
That the Hispanic presence in the Las Vegas Valley—constituting more than one-quarter of the population—is so significant and undeniable that, for Metro, a new reality exists: To secure the Valley is to attend to the Hispanic community.
Yet, as of right now there is a huge disparity between the number of people primed by Metro to serve the Hispanic subculture—six—and the size of that community: 550,000. Moreover, only about 230 Metro officers speak Spanish, some not that well.
H.A.R.T. needs more members, says Officer Ignacio Pulido, who joined the team last June, when a four-year veteran of the squad felt ready to move on.
"My opinion is, the more officers, the more we can do," says Pulido. "If we had more resources we could definitely reach out to more of the Hispanic community, but what department in Metro doesn't need more resources?"
The six members of H.A.R.T., who are split into pairs and stationed out of the most germane posts—Downtown, the northeast area command, and the Bolden command (Pennwood Avenue and Arville Street)—work hard. No doubt. For not only must they work the streets, but half of their duty is also to inform and educate the Spanish-speaking public, much of whom, according to the experiences of several H.A.R.T. members, are ignorant as to how to work with the police. Twelve-hour shifts are common for the team, as are seven-day work weeks, and not one of them feels the work is ever complete.
In consideration of the fact that four out of every 10 robberies in Las Vegas—and the majority in the northeast area (where large portions of the Hispanic community reside)—are perpetrated against Hispanics, no one at Metro doubts that Hispanics are susceptible to victimization. In September alone, a street robbery on Eastern Avenue, near Bonanza Road, ended in the death of a Hispanic man (on the 15th); four Hispanic day laborers were robbed, with one being stabbed to death, in a premeditated plot carried out near Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway (on the 19th); four more Hispanic day laborers were robbed, with one being stabbed to near-death, in a premeditated scheme that began at Bonanza Road and Rancho Drive (on the 20th); and three Hispanic men were robbed and shot, with one of them dying, on Pecos Road and Washington Avenue on the 22nd. Pulido says:
"It's well-known that a lot of [Hispanics], especially immigrants without green cards, keep a lot of money on them, because they think they can't go to banks. We see this a lot come paycheck time, or rent time. The end of the month, you know. It's also well-known that many Hispanics won't report crimes, because they're fearful of the police. This makes them easy targets in some criminals' eyes."
What the numbers don't tell us:
That of the inordinate number of crimes committed against members of the Hispanic community, only a portion are documented. Several—and nobody knows how many for sure—go unreported.
According to Metro, that's because many Hispanics here fear the police—undocumented workers more so than others—and thus want nothing at all to do with law enforcement.
"We find that many Latinos lump all law enforcement together," says Pulido. "If they see or hear about Immigration [and Customs Enforcement] doing a sweep in the Valley, they think we'll do the same to them. That's why we have to be creative when we reach out to the day laborers. We can't just show up in our squad cars and uniforms. They'll run.
"The bottom line is that we're not immigration, and we will not report you."
Furthermore, there is also a large distrust amongst the Hispanic community that derives from two sources:
"I come from a place where the police are very corrupt, and everyone there knows it," says Martin Gutierrez, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico, who has been living and working as a janitor in America for more than five years now. "And here in Las Vegas, the police don't like us. I see them stop my friends all the time, for nothing. If they see you're Mexican, it's bad for you."
H.A.R.T. has led Metro's campaign to bridge this gulf between the police and the Hispanic community, appearing as of late on television stations (like Telemundo) and radio stations (like 1340 AM), and in newspapers (like El Mundo), as well as setting up booths at local Latin festivals and holding informational meetings the second Tuesday of every month (at the area commands mentioned above). "It's what we have to do," says Pulido. "There are too many Hispanics in our community to ignore."