County officials unclear about property ownership
Private investigator Tom Green said he was recently trespassed from the Nevada Cares Campus, the region’s massive homeless shelter. A client hired him to find their homeless son, and Green visited the campus to ask people if they had seen him.
He ended up in a verbal altercation with private security guards on contract with Washoe County, after passing by the security guard shack on Line Drive. He was then issued the trespass notice and is now, according to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, eligible to be arrested if he shows up there again. Green is retired from the Sheriff’s Office.
He said, and video shot by him confirms, that a security guard told him he could walk past the guard shack.
“It is our Security Administrator’s understanding that Mr. Green was trespassed from entering the Cares Campus,” county spokesperson Bethany Drysdale told This Is Reno last week. “He was attempting to access an area that is not accessible to the public.”
Drysdale today said she would not answer any more questions because Green is scheduled to meet with Ben West, the county’s security administrator.
A Sheriff’s Office “pass down” report provided to This Is Reno described this incident like this:
“On 01-26-2024, Retired Chief Deputy Tom Green went to Cares Campus in the afternoon, went passed [sic] the security gate and made it to the new Welcome Center. He was then escorted off the property after he stated he wasn’t there for services.
“Green returned later in the evening with [Washoe] County Commissioner Mike Clark, Green [sic] while filming, walked past the security shack and when confronted became verbally confrontational with Security, Clark [sic] stayed outside the gate and was non-confrontational,” the report notes. “Security escorted Green off the property and trespassed him form [sic] the property. He is now eligible to be arrested for trespassing. Green did state he was going to return on 01-27-2024, he [sic] did not state a time.”
Green said, however, the area he was on was not county property. He was on Line Drive, which the city in late January agreed to turn over to Washoe County. Green’s two incidents occurred on Jan. 26 – one in the afternoon, and another later in the evening. The Reno City Council approved the property transfer two days before then.
“[City officials] gave me maps that clearly show that’s not county property,” he said. “I had permission from the security and property occupants on the west side of Line Drive to be there.”
Drysdale said the county is the property owner.
“[Security Administrator Ben West] thinks that technically it could still be city property on paper, but for all intents and purposes, it’s county [property],” she told This Is Reno.
Green documented the encounter on video and had Commissioner Clark with him at one point. He filed a public records request with Washoe County for video footage of the area, but county officials denied the request.
Clark said Green did nothing wrong.
“The county has egg on its face for telling security it’s county property when it’s not,” he told This Is Reno. “If the county told the contracted security it was county property, when it wasn’t, the security guard had no right to trespass him. I was down there. One security guard escalated this unbelievably. It was way over the top. Tom was not doing anything wrong.”
“To respect the privacy of participants who may be receiving services on campus we do not release video from homeless services locations through public records requests,” an anonymous county official wrote when denying the request.
Nevada law requires, however, that any public records denials include a legal reason for the denial, which the county did not provide. Another records request to the sheriff’s office by Green was also denied. Sheriff’s Office officials claimed the case “has not been adjudicated.” WCSO provided a legal citation that doesn’t support the public records denial, and case history has concluded governments cannot automatically deny records just because a matter is under investigation.
Green said he is going to sue the county for video footage of the area.
“I’d like to see the video as well,” Clark said. “I can’t get information from the county. It’s frustrating.”
The parents who hired Green to find their son, who is alleged to be homeless, called the situation “a mess.”
