Las Vegas Sheriff: Number of homicides and violent crimes declining | Homicides

Sheriff Kevin McMahill praised a decline in violent crime in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday, but raised concerns about fentanyl.

Murders have dropped 18 percent this year and robberies have dropped 20 percent, he said. Although there was an increase in car thefts last year, car thefts have also dropped this year, McMahill said.

According to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department, the number of serious assaults has decreased by about 6 percent.

Violent crimes and robberies also declined in 2023, McMahill said earlier. The number of murders fell by 12 percent in 2023.

“We're actually seeing violence in our city overall decrease for the second year in a row,” said McMahill, who was elected sheriff in 2022. “I'm pretty proud of that.”

He said the main reason for these cuts was the emphasis on community policing.

“The main reason we've seen a general decline in violent crime is not because we're handcuffing everyone,” McMahill says, “but rather because we're building those relationships in the community.”

“On the street, you always know who committed the crime,” he added. “And I believe that with all my heart. It just depends on whether we are good enough to get to the people and build enough of a relationship with those individuals that will tell us who did it.”

Metro has worked to increase community engagement and has created alliances for African Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ and Asians.

More than 90 percent of murders in Las Vegas have been solved for more than a decade, he said, while in other cities only half of the murders are solved.

“If you are a victim of murder here, the perpetrator goes to prison,” he said. “That sends an important message to people who commit crimes in our community.”

According to a September 6 Metro report, there have been 78 murders so far this year, compared to 95 last year.

While Metro is seeing a decline in violent crime, the department is seeing an increase in fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives in all types of street drugs, McMahill said.

“Cola, meth, heroin. Almost everything is laced with fentanyl, even marijuana,” he said.

Fentanyl is difficult to detect immediately, he said, and it takes months to obtain toxicology information on suspects.

The amount of Narcan the department uses on overdose victims suggests that fentanyl has made up a large part of the street drug situation, he said.

Contact Noble Brigham at [email protected]. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.