Metro Sheriff talks about officers’ use of missing messages app

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — For several weeks, Channel 13 has been investigating Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers using an end-to-end encrypted messaging app called Signalknown for its missing messages feature.

We first learned about the app and the Metro officers who use it for work through our news coverage. case of suspended metro sergeant Kevin Menon.

Menon was indicted in October for oppression, subornation of perjury and battery on a protected person. He is accused of staging false arrests on the Las Vegas Strip and primarily targeting people of color.

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Grand jury evidence in the Menon case includes several screenshots from the Signal group chat, which reveals that the officers were communicating about arrest tactics.

A dozen officers who testified before a grand jury in October said they participated in the group chat and used Signal to communicate about work.

“We were using an app called Signal,” Officer Justin Candolesas said, according to grand jury testimony.

Officer Stephen Cosaro told the grand jury that the Signal conversations were not used in his reports.

“To my knowledge, the Signal app is automatically deleted afterward,” Cosaro said.

Menon’s superior, Lt. McMurtry, also admitted to the grand jury that he was participating in a group conversation with Menon.

“The only one I remember seeing was the 425 fraudulent activity and I thought that was the reason for the shutdown,” McMurtry said.

Another officer, Abbygail Armijo, told the grand jury she was afraid to tell her superiors about Menon.

“The lieutenant participated in the group chat and came out with us most of those nights,” Armijo said. “It was a little uncomfortable for us to talk to the lieutenant and captain about it.”

Officer Erik Sanchez said he took the screenshots of the texts on his phone in case he needed them, which is how we were able to obtain them and show them to you.

“That’s my screenshot from my phone, yes,” Sanchez said. “I just wanted to have it if I ever went to Internal Affairs or opened a case to get my evidence.”

We went to the top to get answers about why agents were using this app.

After several attempts to speak with Sheriff McMahill were declined or went unanswered, we went to the Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting on Oct. 31 and asked Sheriff Kevin McMahill about the app and why officers use it.

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Sheriff McMahill said he didn’t know his department’s officers were using Signal.

“It’s against our policy,” McMahill told Channel 13.

The sheriff also told Channel 13 that he is committed to transparency.

“I think it’s pretty clear that I hold Mr. Menon responsible in a number of ways,” McMahill said.

But the sheriff has not said how he plans to hold other officers in the department accountable.

We wanted to know if Menon and other agents using the Signal app were using the disappearing messages feature. If applicable, they would violate Nevada’s open records law.

According to State Lawremoving, injuring or concealing public records or documents is a Class C felony.

One of the reasons public records are so important is that they need to be preserved in case they are needed as evidence in court.

“Government agencies and police officers love to try to get around public records laws,” said Marc Randazza, a Las Vegas-based First Amendment attorney.

Randazza explained why public officials would use an app like Signal.

“They use it because their mutual messages are presumed to be public records,” Randazza said.

According to Signal’s website, “each disappearing message will have a countdown icon visible at the bottom of the message bubble.”

SO we tried downloading the Signal app and I tried both disabling and enabling the disappear messages feature. We noticed that the countdown icon is only available when the disappearing messages setting is enabled.

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We then I went back to the grand jury evidence. selected screenshots from the Signal group text channel and noticed that all the text bubbles have the countdown icon in the bottom corner.

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“They can be purged within a minute of being sent, 10 minutes, an hour, a day, it doesn’t matter,” Randazza said. “This is a very nice feature because once the message is gone, it’s gone forever because it’s encrypted.”

If it’s gone forever, so is the public record.

We spoke to Freddy Martinez, director of the Lucy Parsons Lab, a police transparency and accountability organization based in Chicago.

Martinez said officers’ use of encrypted messaging apps is concerning to the public.

“When you think about it in the context of police officers being able to just download their own apps and delete posts themselves, it really shows how limited the public is even in enforcing the public records laws that we have” , Martinez said. said.

Elected officials and police officers using apps like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp are nothing new. The problem has come to light in cities across the country, including Phoenix.

Our sister station ABC15 in Arizona did a series of investigations on elected officials and police officers using the Signal application.

“Even using one of these apps makes it seem like they’re trying to keep information out of the public’s hands,” said Melissa Blasius, ABC15’s senior investigative reporter.

Blasius said their reports revealed that several city officials were using Signal or WhatsApp for official business.

“In the case that involved police officers involved in a shooting here, the question was: What exactly were the officers talking about during their investigation of a crime that led to the shooting?” Blasius said. “Shouldn’t this be important information to later share with the courts, prosecutors and jury?”

As a result of their reporting, Blasius said specific rules had been issued regarding encrypted messaging apps and public officials were now required to retain such messages.

In Nevada, the the state requires law enforcement agencies to adopt a written policy regarding the use of mobile devices and certain mobile applications by law enforcement.

Channel 13 filed a public records request to obtain Metro’s policy.

The department sent us an administrative notice that was sent to all staff the same day we went to the Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting and spoke to Sheriff McMahill.

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It states: “Department personnel are reminded that all business-related communications must comply” with Nevada law.

You can see that the notice also lists all approved mobile apps and Signal is not one of them.

So far, Menon is the only Metro officer within the Signal group to face charges.

Channel 13 is working to determine whether other officers involved will face disciplinary action.

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