Las Vegas Metro police are refusing to release a violent repeat offender, in defiance of a local judge’s order.
The career criminal, 36-year-old Joshua Sanchez-Lopez, has been arrested 35 times, with a rap sheet that includes involuntary manslaughter, drugs and car theft, according to the New York Post.
The legal standoff began in January, when police arrested Sanchez-Lopez on a warrant for grand larceny of a motor vehicle.
Justice Eric Goodman set Sanchez-Lopez’s bail at $25,000 and ordered his release with an ankle monitor once he posted bond.
The program allows defendants to leave jail and wear an ankle bracelet. Various levels of the program require different levels of confinement. Goodman ordered Sanchez-Lopez to high-level electronic monitoring, which Dickerson described as house arrest. About 450 defendants are in the program at a time.
Sanchez-Lopez reportedly posted bail on January 24, but the Las Vegas police refused to place him in the program, given his history of failing to comply with the rules. Attorneys for Metro filed a petition last week challenging the judge’s authority to release him, arguing that the Department has the authority to declare a defendant too dangerous to release.
In a letter to the court, the department gave three reasons for refusing the judge’s order.
- Sanchez-Lopez’s history of failing to appear in court
- His previous bench warrants
- His past violations of electronic monitoring rules
Police cited a case in 2020, where Sanchez-Lopez, armed with a gun, ran from the cops and later joked about his ankle monitor on Snapchat and gloated about being “chased again.”
“We have to take a look at that and say, ‘Is this somebody who our electronic supervision program can monitor safely in the community?” Mike Dickerson, assistant general counsel for Metro police, told KLAS. “This is an issue of public safety.”
Hellbound and Down 