Boulder City Police Chief facing chargers over Mongols bikers visit

Boulder City Police Chief facing chargers over Mongols bikers visit

Some members of the Mongols in Boulder City, NV (Photo: Fox 5 Vegas)

Boulder City Police Chief facing chargers over Mongols bikers visit.

Thomas Finn, the Boulder City Police Chief, is under fire for allegedly taking steps to destroy records relating the Mongols June, 2012 visit.

He reportedly sent an email to other city officials urging them to destroy emails relating to the Mongols visit to Boulder City.

Here are the contents of Chief Finn’s email, reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal,

If (the Mongols) submit a records request for them it would obviously show our hand and divulge the strategies and staffing levels we need to keep confidential. Therefore, please delete any and all emails related to the event immediately.

It’s against the law destroy a public record in Nevada.

It seems the the Chief was apprehensive about the Mongols visit from the beginning,  According to the LA Times,  Finn had  concern about a tip from fellow law enforcement officers that a Mongols member coming to Boulder City had issued a “shoot on sight” order for Hells Angels members.

Why did the Boulder City Police Chief want the records destroyed in the first place, since the Mongols did indeed visit Boulder City over the summer?

A plausible reason is because the Mongols continually fight for their rights, and if they believe they have been wronged, the Mongols will sue.

Therefore, if the allegations are true and they was a lawsuit (which there is), Finn would not want the public records to be used in the lawsuit.

That strategy backfired.

The Boulder City Council voted Tuesday night for an independent investigation into its city’s police chief. The meeting was reportedly packed with member of the Mongols. Finn did not attend.

Here is what Finn had to say in a statement,

Regarding the ‘toxic leadership environment’ allegation, the greatest leadership challenges I have had to resolve through personal intervention have, ironically, involved infighting between individual members of the BCPPA. Although most of the them make me immensely proud of their level of commitment and dedication to ‘The Job,’ a small handful provide challenges that test all my experience, training, education and skills

The Mongols filed a police complaint in October alleging that the Boulder City Police Department targeted its members for harassment and tried to destroy evidence of possible civil rights abuses during the club’s national meeting in Boulder City this past summer, as reported by the Las Vegas Sun.

Stephen Stubbs, the Las Vegas Tax Attorney, representing the Mongols said this about his clients,

It’s going to be like a family reunion, with brothers who haven’t seen each other in a long time getting together and then going home. An enormous police presence just isn’t necessary. The Mongols motorcycle club is not a criminal organization – it  is not a gang.

Thomas Finn, the Boulder City Police Chief facing chargers over Mongols bikers visit has filed a number of lawsuits too saying that he is being targeted by officials and some officers who want to see him lose his job.

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