Three quarters of Las Vegas cops earned six figures in 2022, with one corrections officer pocketing a cool $142k in overtime and elected sheriff taking $215k in pension contributions

Sometimes, crime does pay - or at least fighting it might! 

Startling new figures show three quarters of Las Vegas's police force earned six-figure compensation packets in 2022 - with one officer pocketing a cool $142,000 in overtime alone.

The Metropolitan Police Department - the biggest police force in all of Nevada - boasts some 3,300 sworn officers. 

Of those, more than 2,200 took home six-figures worth of benefits- many receiving well over $300,000 in total.

These bumper pay packets funded by taxpayer dollars have been a common theme for years but critics are increasingly questioning if they have become too big. 

Law enforcement pays big in Sin City, according to public records, which have laid bare the department's high-paying perks 

Despite the payouts, Vegas still has one of biggest the crime rates in the country. With nearly 8,000 violent crimes this past year, the chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in the gambling destination is one in 28, a crime rate of 35 per one thousand residents

Take Valyon Goins for instance, a pickle ball-playing LVMPD corrections officer in his mid 60s who earned $142,131 in extra pay in 2022 alone - a sum that accounted for 44 percent of his total take-home. 

Compare that with the $176,685 salary of the department's top cop, Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who was sworn in as the eighth sheriff of the Las Vegas department on January 2. 

That sum - all secured last year - came on top of his first year in pension, thanks to a previous post as undersheriff and a career of over thirty years.

Legally allowed since he's an elected official, the allowance amounted to $215,229 in 2022 - one of many high-paying perks being dished out by the department.

Meanwhile, recently retired Christopher Darcy, who also held the rank undersheriff, raked in a whopping $417,699 in 2022 - his final year on the force.  

Currently an expert witness for a private investigation firm, Darcy retired after 32 years with the department.

His take-home included payouts for unused sick and vacation time earned over his career - hence the hefty payout. 

Chuck Callaway, the current director of the Vegas department, made more than half a million dollars in 2022

This was the case with several other officers - all of whom have since moved onto other positions.

Chuck Callaway, the current director of the Vegas department, made more than half a million dollars in 2022.

Not elected, Callaway - also the writer of a 2023 graphic novel about his career in policing - collected the sum when his salary was only $154,541.52.

Such was the case with ex-Assistant Sheriff John McGrath, who made $379,954.83 during his final year with the force.

That compensation came in despite the lawman's base salary being just $215,349 - a still-impressive sum given that sites like Indeed peg the average annual salary police officer salary as being somewhere around $64,500.

In September 2022, McGrath aired body worn camera video from an officer who was shot while on duty but managed to survive, during a traffic stop days before. 

The suspect, Gabrial Charles died from his injuries, while Officer Tierney Tomburo - the one who was shot - was hailed as a hero. She made $130,952.86 that year, records show.

Officer Jeffrey Roch, meanwhile, made an eye watering $390,508, while an also retiring Lieutenant Eric Calhoun commanded $361,731.

Fellow Lt. Jason Johansson made some $393,660 without even retiring - earning an extra $248,849 on top of his $144,810 salary.

Undersheriff Andrew Walsh - McMahill's second-in-command - enjoyed compensation of $378,471, well beyond his salary of $176,685.

Such payouts are not new within the 51-year-old department, old headlines suggest - with a story from the Las Vegas Sun in 2007 shining a light on the staffers' compensation, in a state notorious for being stingy with public tax dollars.

Retiring Lieutenant Eric Calhoun commanded $361,731 in 2022, thanks in large part to unused sick and vacation time earned over the course of his career

Meanwhile, fellow Lt. Jason Johansson - seen here last year during a presser at LVMPD's HQ covering the arrest of Duane 'Keefe D' Davis for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur - made some $393,660 without retiring,  earning an extra $248,849 on top of his $144,810 salary

'Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine is the county's highest-ranking employee, but she is far from being the county's highest-paid employee,' the February piece from reporter Jeff German and Mike Trask began.

'That distinction belongs to Carl Nelson, a 30-year emergency medical services supervisor who, thanks to 2,400 hours of overtime, last year earned $232,791, well above Valentine's $180,692.'

The journalists then delve into the spending that was occurring at the time at the Metro Police Department, revealing that since retired corrections officer Cecil Dyer was the top-paid employee in 2006, earning $194,877 - worth $300,000 today.

More than half of that - $100,207 - came from overtime, the reporters wrote, citing public records available at the time.

By contrast, then-Sheriff Bill Young, who as an elected official had his salary set by the state, earned just $134,263, not including a pension, the Sun found.

The discoveries came during a review of Southern Nevada's government salaries, which found that the percentage of public employees pulling in six-figures was three times the 5 percent national average for all workers, public and private.

For a region dominated by the often crime ridden Las Vegas strip, that still came as a surprise, as that average includes other crime-heavy major metropolitan areas.

Recently retired Undersheriff Christopher Darcy raked in a whopping $417,699 in 2022, his final year on the force

Critics have attributed this disparity to the system that's been in place in Clark County for the better part of the past two decades - a timeframe that has seen high-profile incidents like the 2017 music festival mass shooting and the 2023 murder of a 17-year-old at the hands of four other teens.

Experts have said it operates in large part for the benefit of the workers - not the citizens they are meant to protect.

The system has seemingly allowed them to reap as much overtime as they want, while being bolstered by benefits like unlimited rollovers for unused PTO and pensions.

This has cost hundreds of million of public tax dollars, people have pointed out -  money that otherwise could be spent on other needs.

Moreover, Metro's budget last year was $785 million - $610million of which went toward paying employees

'I'm stunned by those salaries,' Tanis Salant, a public administration professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told the Sun back in 2007, citing how four Metro corrections officers each earned more than $77,000 in overtime in 2006 alone.

'I've never heard of public safety line officers making so much money,' she said, chiding officials for not using more money to address staff shortages due to sickness or other factors, and making unlimited overtime their way of doing business.

Such was the case with ex-Assistant Sheriff John McGrath - seen here at a LVMPD conference in 2022 after a fellow officer got shot - made $379,954.83 during his final year with the force.

The presser saw McGrath produce body worn camera video from shot Officer Tierney Tomburo on Sept. 13, 2022, after suspect Gabriel Charles shot Tomburo and Tomburo returned fire during a traffic stop days before

Charles died from his injuries, but Tomburo (pictured) was hailed as a hero. She was named the force's top cop this past year, after pulling in $130,952.86 in 2022

Footage showed her close call with death - one of more than 8,000 violent crimes that occurred that year

In the years since, as sites like Transparent.Nevada.com show, workers continue to earn tens - and even hundreds - of thousands of extra dollars annually, all at citizens' expense.

Crime, meanwhile, continues in Sin City - a town known for drunken blowups and crime, especially of the violent variety.

That said, after jumping more than 7 percent in 2022, the city's overall crime rate dropped an impressive 8 percent in 2023.

However, with a crime rate of 35 per one thousand residents, Vegas still has one of the highest crime rates in the country, especially when taking account to all communities of all sizes. 

With nearly 8,000 violent crimes this past year, the chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in the gambling destination is one in 28, according to incident tracker Neighborhood Scout.

Meanwhile, the department got in hot water this past year, after it failed to provide local publication the Las Vegas Review-Journal with information about an investigation into a law enforcement officer.

The probe involved an unnamed Nevada Highway Patrol trooper who was alleged to have attempted to hire a confidential informant to kill or harm his wife, but charges were never filed. 

In 2019, the Review-Journal filed a public records request for documents related to the case after filing several others, but all went unfulfilled. 

At the time, the paper claimed the Metro police department - which oversees the patrol - demanded exorbitant fees to release the document, before passing the buck to another agency while claiming it couldn't produce the documents. 

The department got in hot water just this past year, after it failed to provide local paper with information about an investigation into a law enforcement officer. The Nevada Supreme Court sided with the outler, saying that brass like McGrath - seen here being awarded a plaque for his service by then sheriff and current Nevada Gov Joe Lombardo in 2022 - failed to do their duty

That and other requests that went ignored spurred a lawsuit from the Review-Journal just last year, which went all the way to The Nevada Supreme Court.

The court quickly found that Metro broke the law by not heeding the paper's repeated requests.

Afterwards, Review-Journal attorney Maggie McLetchie chided the department for not doing their civic duty.

'The law mandates that the government provide clear and specific responses within five business days of receipt of a request for access to the public's records,' she said in March of last year.

'Metro has not cooperated in this case. No reporter or other member of the public should have to spend over a year following up to get answers.'

The records have since been released with limited redactions. 

Moreover, the department's former sheriff, Joe Lombardo, is now Nevada's governor, elected this past year. He made $210,965.37 in 2022, records show, as well as $534,197.35 in 2014 when he was still Assistant Sheriff. 

He retired and was elected sheriff the very next year, before calling it quits ahead of 2023.