Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
When the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office posted its weekly Message of the Week from sheriff Brad Pope on Facebook on March 8, most of the more than 300 comments were either links to or comments about a You Tube video purporting to show a Lyon County deputy berating a person with foul language and arresting the person for failing to comply with his orders.
The video is from the deputy’s body camera, and several versions of it have been posted to You Tube and as comments on Sheriff’s Office social media posts. The various versions of the videos have each been viewed several thousand times.
In the video, a deputy is seen commanding a person who is walking a bicycle to get on the ground, while the person repeatedly asks what he is being detained for and demands to speak to a supervisor.
In the social media posts, the accounts posting the video accuse the Sheriff’s Office of violating the person’s first and fourth amendment rights and of fabricating an arrest.
In a statement sent to the media and posted on social media, Pope defended the actions of the deputy in the video and said the video does not give a complete depiction of what took place on Sept. 14, 2023.
In his statement, Pope said the deputy was responding to what appeared to be an open or uncontrolled fire near and apartment building. The flames were estimated to be 7-10 feet tall and it appeared the building may be on fire. Pope said as the deputy attempted to inquire about the flames, he saw a man in a black hooded sweatshirt leaving the area on a bicycle, around the rear of the apartment building.
Pope said deputies are consistently dispatched to the area for various criminal investigations and complaints. He said Sheriff’s Office records indicate 150 calls for service have been generated from the area and 80 calls for service for various criminal complaints have been made by residents of the area the deputy responded to. He did not specify the time frame in which those calls were made.
The deputy drove around the building attempting to find the person who left on the bicycle and found him pushing his bike into a patio area of a 4-unit building, which he thought the person might be trying to hide.
The deputy called out for the person to “come here”, and Pope said when the person turned, the deputy recognized the person from prior law enforcement contacts as James Gresham. When the deputy commanded Gresham to come here, Gresham initially complied but was yelling at the deputy, stating he had done nothing wrong.
Pope said the deputy was acting within the mission and direction that he wants all of his deputies to abide by.
“Was there foul language used?” Pope asked in his statement. “Absolutely. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office expects our deputies to act professional at all times, there is a time and place for such language to gain compliance from a subject. The deputy in the video knows this as well, and acts accordingly.”
Pope went on to list eight times Gresham was arrested by LCSO and twice by the Nevada Highway Patrol.
“If the Lyon County communities take issue with the way our deputy acted, I take full responsibility, as this is the direction I have given them,” Pope said in his statement.
The following is the full statement by Sheriff Brad Pope:
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