Lacking Any Details, Transparency and Accountability, Residents Try to Decipher Reno PD Flowchart

A recap of our recent reporting plus bonus content.

Mar 12, 2026

A work week into the huge turmoil at Reno PD, without any specifics besides the police chief’s name, residents are scrambling for any information, deconstructing the most recently available organizational flowcharts, and trying to find any clues they can get as to what might have been going on within the entire department.

A press conference today gave no new names, timelines or details on what is being investigated, after Reno Police Chief Kathryn Nance was put on paid administrative leave with five others as initially announced on Monday.

One disclosure was that the city has a $2 million price tag so far on having to pay the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office to take over leadership responsibilities for our police department. The price tag for the investigation by the Nevada Department of Public Safety hasn’t been given though. Questions kept pouring in from reporters today, while the answers seemed to get shorter and shorter.

Where are all the pr crisis management experts we have in this town? This doesn’t seem to be an effective playbook in the least.

These types of situations are rare, so it’s understandable Mayor Hillary Schieve appeared extremely distraught at the initial vague announcement of this evolving scandal on Monday. In Denver, the city there has spent over a year investigating a top police commander; in 2013, in Camden, New Jersey, following a Department of Justice corruption investigation, the city disbanded its local police department and restructured it under county control; in 2014, not far in Newark, a DOJ investigation found a pattern of constitutional violations, prompting federal oversight; while in 2018, in Detroit, an investigation exposed widespread bribery and corruption within the department's towing operations.

When it seems like the entire police leadership all of whom have bloated, extravagant salaries, is on paid administrative leave for an undetermined amount of time, it’s just not normal in any way, and the public deserves much more in terms of transparency and accountability.

Tellingly when asked what his main challenges were coming in as acting chief on our dime, Corey Solferino, from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, talked about earning the trust of Reno PD officers, without uttering a single word in that answer about Reno residents.