About the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police Department
According to the Undersheriff Douglas C.
Gillespie, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department “has come a long way since its inception in 1973. On July 1,
1973 action of the Nevada Legislature merged the Clark County Sheriff’s Department and the Las Vegas Police Department
into the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
At that time, the Las Vegas Police
Department was the largest police agency in Nevada, with 394 commissioned and 82 civilian personnel, having responsibility
for 52.6 square miles. The Clark County Sheriff’s Department was the largest sheriff’s department in Nevada with
387 commissioned and 124 civilian personnel with nearly 8,000 square miles of jurisdiction. The population of both the city
and county was approximately
270,500.
Today, while the jurisdiction size
has remained relatively unchanged, the number of personnel to police that jurisdiction has changed considerably. This department
now serves a population of nearly 1.5 million residents and 40 million tourists visit each year. We now have 2,635 commissioned
police officers, 747 commissioned corrections officers, and over 1,600 civilian personnel working in both the police and
corrections fields.”
