Henderson city officials have confirmed an active investigation into the two highest-ranking officers in the Henderson Police Department, Chief Reggie Rader and Deputy Chief Matt Murnane, with Murnane already placed on administrative leave while the probe unfolds. The city asked Nevada's Department of Public Safety to handle the inquiry rather than keeping it in-house, a move that signals just how seriously officials are treating allegations involving the department's own command staff.
As first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the City of Henderson confirmed the investigation is active and involves allegations against both Rader and Murnane. The city requested that the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Office of Professional Responsibility lead the probe, and Murnane has been placed on leave as it proceeds. The Review-Journal describes the matter as a developing story, and the specific nature of the allegations that triggered state involvement has not been made public.
Why an Outside Agency Is Running the Probe
The Office of Professional Responsibility, based in Carson City, is tasked with conducting independent, objective investigations into misconduct and policy violations across Nevada law enforcement. Local governments typically turn to the state agency specifically in cases like this one, where allegations reach the department's own top executive and second-in-command, since keeping such a probe inside HPD's internal affairs unit would raise an obvious conflict of interest.
Rader has led Henderson police for just over a year. The former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department deputy chief was sworn in on July 15, 2025, after a months-long search that followed the ouster of his predecessor, and Hoodline covered his swearing-in as Henderson's new police chief at the time. That predecessor, Hollie Chadwick, was fired in March 2025 by City Manager Stephanie Garcia-Vause after less than two years on the job, with the city citing leadership style rather than any specific misconduct. Records released that June revealed months of email friction between Chadwick and Garcia-Vause before Chadwick was placed on leave.
A Department With a History of Turnover at the Top
Rader is now the ninth chief to lead the Henderson Police Department in 25 years, according to Wikipedia, a pattern of executive turnover that has shadowed the agency even as it has grown into a force of roughly 390 sworn officers and about 190 civilian staff serving a city of more than 300,000 residents. His appointment last year was framed as a stabilizing move after Chadwick's abrupt departure, but the department has continued to face scrutiny in the year since.
Murnane's current leave is not the department's first brush with outside controversy this year. In July, a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court naming the City of Henderson, Rader, Murnane, and individual officers over the fatal police shooting of a family dog during a 2025 wellness check, alleging HPD allowed deadly force against non-aggressive dogs without adequate training or oversight. Months earlier, in February, Murnane had acknowledged that the department failed to consistently track state-required officer training on dog encounters, after a local media inquiry found that an officer involved in a fatal shooting had not completed the required training; Murnane said at the time that HPD moved immediately to fix the tracking gap. Hoodline covered the shooting investigation that prompted that scrutiny in a story about cops swarming a Henderson block.
Oversight Friction Predates This Investigation
Tension over how HPD polices itself is not new. In August 2025, internal records showed that an internal affairs investigation and related files had been ordered scrubbed by a Henderson city employee, exposing what was described as non-standard interference with an internal department probe. That same fall, Henderson police unions and valley-wide law enforcement associations publicly condemned Councilwoman Monica Larson after she sent an email criticizing what she called “the persistent lack of integrity, professionalism, and morality” within HPD, a dispute Hoodline detailed in December.
The friction came even as the department pushed an aggressive hiring expansion, enrolling a record 56 recruits into its police academy class in May as part of an effort to drive officer vacancies down to near zero. It remains unclear what specific conduct triggered the state's involvement in the current investigation, or whether Murnane's leave will lead to broader leadership changes at the top of Nevada's second-largest city's police force. The Review-Journal's report characterizes the matter as an ongoing, developing story, and Henderson officials have not detailed a timeline for when the Office of Professional Responsibility's findings might become public.
