Video courtesy FoxNews

Clark County Today Editor Ken Vance reacts to recent attacks on law enforcement officers

Ken Vance, editor
Clark County Today

FBI Director Kash Patel made a clear and stern statement this weekend. “If you assault a law enforcement officer, you’re going to jail – period!”

I couldn’t agree with that statement more.

Like many of you, I have been very disturbed this weekend watching the events in Los Angeles and other areas in our country. In Los Angeles, a report from The Center Square detailed what many of us watched on our television. A crowd threw lit fireworks and other objects Saturday night at federal detention officers standing in a line on Alameda Street near the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. The officers wore armor, face shields and gas masks. Los Angeles police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office arrived later. 

In response to earlier “violent mobs” attacking Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles, the White House announced Saturday evening that President Donald Trump was deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen in response to the violence. Members of the National Guard arrived around 4 a.m. local time Sunday, according to media reports.

For the record, Clark County Sheriff John Horch told Clark County Today Tuesday that “we have never obstructed federal immigration efforts.” 

Most of us have never experienced riot situations like this and, thankfully, Horch’s reassurance means we likely never will in Clark County. 

It’s absolutely unfathomable for me to think of people in the United States behaving in this manner. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized the president for intervening into a situation that they claimed was under control. We all witnessed with our own eyes that was absolutely not the case.

Obviously, in my lifetime I have not experienced any interaction with law enforcement that even comes close to what I watched taking place in Los Angeles this weekend. Let me say that I’m sure there are bad officers in this country who have made mistakes. But, you will have a very difficult time convincing me that those bad officers and unfortunate incidents are not an overwhelmingly small percentage of the overall interactions between law enforcement and members of us in the public.

Fortunately, as a private citizen, my interaction with law enforcement has been limited in my later years. I have been blessed in recent years to make several car trips across portions of this beautiful region of the Western United States where I reside. On two of those trips, my actions led to a pair of interactions with police officers. Both came in the same general area, south of Ely, Nevada. In both instances, I was pulled over because I was exceeding the speed limit. And both of these interactions couldn’t have been more of a positive reinforcement of my belief that police officers are our friends, not our enemies.

The first interaction was in June 2024 with an officer who introduced himself as the sheriff of the county where I was speeding. I quickly provided the officer with my driver’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. He asked me when was the last time I had received a speeding violation and I told him it was long enough ago that I couldn’t even remember. I guessed about 15 years. He returned to his vehicle and after confirming my information, he allowed me to continue with just a warning. He did say, however, “if you get pulled over again in this county you will receive a citation.’’ I believed him.

Well, that next time occurred in April (2025). I don’t believe it was the same county, but it might have been. There are few towns between Ely and Las Vegas, Nevada. When you reach one of these towns, you travel through several different speed zones designed to reduce your speed, first to 55, then 45, 35 and eventually 25. And these towns are almost always monitored by law enforcement. I obviously was very aware of that. It seems a little excessive to me, both the distance and the overall reduction in speed, but I’m sure there are safety issues that justify the posted speed limits so it is my responsibility to obey the law.

I was leaving one of these small towns and I thought I had traveled through the final speed zone and I began accelerating back to the higher speed limit. Just at that moment, I saw an officer ahead on my left and a speed limit sign on my right that read 45 mph speed limit. Sure enough, he put his lights on and there was immediate room for me to pull off the roadway so I had come to a stop before he had even begun his pursuit. The officer came up on the passenger side of my vehicle. Again, I had my information ready for him before he even asked and I took full responsibility for my failure to obey the speed limit. He returned with a citation for speeding. The officer couldn’t have been more friendly or professional. Believe me, I paid much closer attention to the speed limits on the rest of my trip, and I called and paid my fine as soon as I got home.

Now I know my recent interactions with law enforcement pale in comparison to what is going on in Los Angeles this weekend. Still, it is my belief that if everyone treated law enforcement the way I treated them in these two examples, I believe the overwhelming percentage of the time, the officers will treat the citizens just as they treated me.

I’ve fallen into the habit of watching videos of law enforcement interactions. Most are just routine traffic stops gone bad. The reason they go bad is usually because the citizen refuses to cooperate with simple and lawful requests. I never understand why they don’t just provide their information and comply with the officer’s commands. At this time, most law enforcement officers have a body cam or dashboard cameras in their patrol vehicle. There is so much scrutiny on law enforcement, the bad actors have a very difficult time not being held accountable for their bad actions. 

So, if my “first world’’ personal anecdotes are a bit Pollyanna compared to the attacks on ICE officials in Los Angeles this weekend, I apologize. I have a hard time believing those are law-abiding citizens who are rioting and attacking law enforcement. But, I believe the advice should be heeded by all and I support FBI Director Patel’s statement that anyone who assaults a law enforcement officer should be sent to jail. I also support President Trump sending in National Guard troops to have the backs of those police officers being attacked in Los Angeles.

For average citizens, I urge you to comply with the appropriate and lawful requests of officers and see how that works for you.

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