For several weeks in March 2024, a serial burglar went around plunging a hammer through windows of nearly a dozen Downtown Las Vegas Arts District businesses in an incident the Metropolitan Police Department informally dubbed “Hammertime.”
Tacotarian co-founder Kristen Corral’s restaurant on Casino Center Boulevard was among the targets.
“Our entire window and the door were shattered. Someone came in and tried to steal our cash box, which was thankfully empty. Another guy threw rocks through our windows, and there were people stealing stuff off our back patio, even though it was locked and we had it fenced in,” Corral says. “I was just so frustrated because we were spending all of this money to improve security, and we weren’t getting any help.”
She appealed to Las Vegas City Councilmember Olivia Diaz, who passed her concerns along to LVMPD captain Adam Seely. In just his third day after being promoted to lead the Downtown Area Command (DTAC), Seely’s first encounter with Corral was fiery.
“I started yelling at him before he even got a word in,” Corral recalls with a laugh.
Tacotarian in the Arts District
“I told her the same thing I tell everyone: I can help you,” Seely says. “We came up with a plan to increase police presence during the times the suspect was committing the crimes. About two weeks later, we had them in custody.”
From there, Seely set out to build a better relationship between the community and his team of 165 officers. His message was simple: “Anyone who wants to have a relationship with the police and with me, they get to have one.”
It was especially important for him to foster trust with business owners who were previously hesitant to call about crimes because DTAC’s annual allocation of officers and resources is based on the number of reports it receives.
“There’s a disconnect between some business owners and Metro, and we sometimes feel powerless,” Corral says. “In the moment, reporting sometimes feels like a waste of time because you think they won’t catch that person. But when we don’t report or under-report, it skews the facts. I think forming working relationships with them specifically gives us a little bit of power back.”
The numbers indicate some progress. Between 2024 and 2025, Seely says incidents of violent crime and property crime decreased by 11% and 15%, respectively, across the 10 square miles the DTAC covers. In the Arts District alone, both categories also fell by 3%. According to the LVMPD’s February 22 weekly crime report, DTAC has had 5.6% more calls for service this year than at the same point in 2025, while citations issued because of those calls are up 36%.
Now, Corral says she has Seely “on speed dial,” adding there’s been a “noticeable difference” in the issues she and her employees have faced since he took over.
She also credits the Deputy City Marshals’ Problem Oriented Policing (POP) team with helping address the adjacent issue of homelessness in the Arts District. Formed in 2023, the six-member team regularly patrols the area to check in with businesses, offer support to homeless individuals who want it and issue citations or make arrests when deemed necessary.
Could this model of maximizing community engagement be replicated elsewhere in the Valley?
Colin Fukunaga, owner of Fukuburger in Chinatown, says it has been. Over the last several years, he’s worked with captain Jimmy Lorson of Spring Valley Area Command (SVAC) to develop a similar system that includes monthly community meetings and a Facebook group connecting business owners with the SVAC.
For years, Fukunaga says the area was plagued by crimes like recurring car break-ins that were frequently under-reported due to what he describes as the Asian American community’s cultural tendency to be less likely to trust law enforcement. But after speaking with one of Lorson’s predecessors, Fukunaga started rallying his peers.
“I had a light bulb go on, like, oh my God, we’re killing ourselves by not encouraging reporting. After that, I went on a mission to let all the other businesses know that it will only get worse if they try to sweep it under the rug,” Fukunaga says.
Fukunaga and Seely both say another benefit of reporting is that perpetrators often repeat their crimes until they’re caught. By studying similar reports, detectives can catch suspects sooner.
“The more they do it, the more they leave crumbs,” Fukunaga says. “People just don’t realize how easily a lot of these crimes are solved, and reporting is a big part of that.”
For him and other Chinatown businesses, “the pervasive feeling is optimistic.”
“Everyone who’s getting involved and reporting feels very supported and confident about where things are going with the SVAC,” he says. “The department is not just talking. They’re being proactive and reactive.”
Corral shares a similar outlook on the Arts District.
“While the city still bears a lot of responsibility—and I still do not think they’re doing enough—I think that Metro has really stepped in to try to fill the gaps,” she says. “It speaks to the importance of participating in government and advocating for what we need as business owners. Whether that’s with Metro or the city, you can’t just sit back and expect everybody else to do it for you.”
Seely urges others to follow that lead.
“The best information that the police department gets comes directly from the community, because we simply can’t be everywhere at once,” he says. “The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and when people come forward to tell us about public disorder, I can almost always fix it overnight.”
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