Mark’s Soap Box

Arrogance.

(former) Chief of Police Alan B. Kerstein has turned in today his resignation from the City of Henderson Police Department. He was on the job for 5 months.

Why is he gone, you ask? Simple, he thought the department was his personal cab service. He had an off-duty police officer come and pick up his family from McCarran International Airport. This coming on the heels of having a ‘sun roof’ installed in his city issued car.

Resume:

Alan B. Kerstein was appointed Chief of Police in August 2005 becoming the ninth person to head the City of Henderson Police Department since the City’s incorporation in 1953. Chief Kerstein brings with him more than 37 years of law enforcement experience.

Chief Kerstein heads the second largest city police department in Nevada with 273 police officers, more than 30 corrections officers and more than 125 full-time civilian employees. He comes to Henderson from the Los Angeles School Police Department, the largest school police department in the country, with 362 sworn officers and approximately 175 civilian and non-sworn school safety officers. Chief Kerstein was appointed as the Los Angeles School Police Chief in June 2002.

From January 2000 through June 2002, he was the Chief of Police for West Valley City, Utah, the state’s second largest city. Prior to that he served 31 years with the Los Angeles Police Department rising through the ranks to the position of Commander, where he over saw police operations on the west side of Los Angeles.

Chief Kerstein joins the City of Henderson’s Police Department at a time of expansion as a recent voter-approved countywide tax initiative will add more than 300 police officers in the next five years.

Sadly, he blew an opportunity of a lifetime. Henderson is a great place to live, it’s growing, and people come here to get away from Vegas. This was exactly the thing that people move here to avoid.