Nevada sheriff tells library backing Black Lives Matter movement not to call 911 for help

MINDEN, Nev. — When a public library in Nevada attempted this week to offer support for the Black Lives Matter movement, the county’s sheriff denounced the plan – and warned library officials not to bother calling 911 for help.

Douglas County Sheriff Daniel Coverley has since walked back his statement, blaming the stress of the ongoing protests against police brutality for his response, according to the Reno Gazette Journal.

The newspaper reported that Coverley met Tuesday with Douglas County Public Library Director Amy Dodson, who, in a joint statement with the sheriff on Tuesday, described the incident as “an unfortunate circumstance of misunderstanding.

Coverley’s initial response to the library’s support of Black Lives Matter protests read crystal-clear, however.

“Due to your support of Black Lives Matter and the obvious lack of support or trust with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, please do not feel the need to call 911 for help” Coverley’s letter to the library board read. “I wish you good luck with disturbances and lewd behavior, since those are just some of the recent calls my office has assisted you with in the past.”

U.S. Census data from the 2010 Census shows that less than 1% of Douglas County’s population is Black. About 89% of the approximately 48,000 residents are white.

Coverley said in his and Dodson’s joint statement that his response came about because he “perceive(d) that (his) office may be under attack.”

“My response was rooted in my belief that these issues need to be openly discussed in a way that values diversity and law enforcement,” the sheriff said.

“The library respects and supports the work of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and appreciates everything they do to keep our community safe,” Dodson said.

The controversy began last week with an agenda item for the library board’s now-canceled special meeting, which had been scheduled for Tuesday. The item consisted of a possible diversity statement that was up for discussion by board members.

The statement began by proclaiming that all are welcome at the library system’s two branches, located in Minden and Zephyr Cove. The system, the item stated, was joining more than 170 public libraries across North America that had signed the Urban Libraries Council’s Statement on Race and Social Equity.

System officials condemned violence and racism against Black and Indigenous people, as well as all people of color.

“The Douglas County Public Library denounces all acts of violence, racism, and disregard for human rights,” the proposed diversity statement read. “We support #BlackLivesMatter. We resolutely assert and believe that all forms of racism, hatred, inequality and injustice don’t belong in our society.”

Coverley’s response, dated Monday, was in the form of a letter to the library’s board of trustees. The letter stated that the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, which has sparked daily Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S., “shined a national spotlight on bad actors within the law enforcement profession.”

The sheriff then denied the existence of systemic racism or structural bias in law enforcement, saying the data does not support the claims.

In the next sentence, however, he wrote that “despite the lack of available evidence to support the anti-police narrative, it proliferates and has spawned radical reactions such as the current calls to “defund the police,” as well as increases in violence against police – ranging from assaults to assassinations.”

Coverley cited data, without attribution, that he claims shows there were nine fatal shootings of unarmed Black people, and another 19 of unarmed white people, nationwide in 2019.

“The data indicate that exceedingly few encounters with police involve force,” Coverley wrote.

USA Today last month debunked similar statistics cited by Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the conservative Turning Point USA. In a Facebook video, Kirk cited The Washington Post’s database of police shootings to claim that police killed eight unarmed Black men last year.

The newspaper pointed out that the Post’s database shows a total of 13, not eight, shooting deaths of unarmed Black men. At least one Black woman, Atatiana Jefferson, was also killed by police in Fort Worth, Texas, as she and her nephew played video games together in October.

The database also suffers from a lack of comprehensive police records.

Click here to see Fatal Force, the Post’s police shooting database.

First, the database fails to include people like Floyd who have been killed by police officers through means other than firearms. Floyd died after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes, all while Floyd begged him to stop and said, repeatedly, that he could not breathe.

Floyd was reportedly recovering from COVID-19 when he was killed.

In addition, there is no federal requirement for law enforcement agencies to supply data on the number of people killed in police custody or during arrests.

Mapping Police Violence, a crowdsourced database that includes police beating deaths, deaths by Taser and deaths by vehicle, estimated at least 25 police killings of unarmed Black men in 2019, according to USA Today.

See the Mapping Police Violence map below.

Coverley’s statistic on the total of all people killed by police, about 1,000, appears to be in line with the annual average cited by the newspaper’s June report.

“The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is the only local law enforcement agency in Douglas County, and it is the men and women of DCSO that keep you safe,” the sheriff wrote in his letter to the board. “The Black Lives Matter movement openly calls all law enforcement corrupt and racist on their website. They call for the defunding of police, and we have seen how a lack of active law enforcement has worked in Seattle and Portland, Oregon.”

Coverley wrote that protests have resulted in violence, property damage and the closing of businesses, sometimes permanently. He does not mention the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on the closures of businesses across the country.

“To support this movement is to support violence and to openly ask for it to happen in Douglas County,” Coverley wrote.

The Gazette Journal reported that Coverley’s letter appeared to be lifted, word for word, from a letter sent to Congress last month by 11 state attorney generals and two sheriffs’ associations. The letter, a copy of which is on Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s website, cites the Post’s shootings database as the source of the statistics Coverley used.

Both the library’s proposed diversity statement and Coverley’s response have garnered widespread attention. On social media, the sheriff found some supporters, but several people called for his resignation.

Black Lives Matter’s Carson City chapter has a protest targeting Coverley planned for Aug. 8.

In the comments on a story about the controversy by the Las Vegas Sun, a couple of people proclaimed that “all lives matter,” and one person claimed the “BLM” in Black Lives Matter stands for “burn, loot, murder.”

One man, however, posted a cartoon image of a police officer wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe.

“I bet any amount of money that this library holds in its collection a copy of the U.S. Constitution,” a second man wrote. “Feel free to read it, sheriff.”

The “overwhelming community response” to the controversy led the county to cancel the board’s Tuesday meeting, Melissa Blosser, a Douglas County spokeswoman, told the Gazette Journal.

The diversity statement was also attacked by members of the public after the library posted it to its Facebook page. County officials had it removed.

“We had them take it down,” Blosser told the newspaper. “We cannot use public-owned media to propagate a political agenda.”

In a follow-up statement on Tuesday, Coverley clarified his previous statement to say deputies would continue responding to 911 calls at the library.

“My response to the library’s proposed agenda item was to provide public comment about their proposed diversity statement and to further provide open commentary about how this could affect our local law enforcement profession,” Coverley said.

Cox Media Group