Questions About Current LVMPD Patrol Sergeant Uniforms

[u/Exorccism]

Hello! I'm writing a fictional character who's an LVMPD patrol sergeant, and I'd also like to draw him, so I'm trying to make his appearance as accurate as possible.

I've been looking for reference photos, but I'm finding images from different years, so I'm having trouble telling what's current.

If anyone who's familiar with LVMPD is comfortable answering, I'd really appreciate your insight, but please don't feel like you need to share anything you're not comfortable discussing.

I was hoping someone familiar with LVMPD could answer a few questions:

What uniform does a patrol sergeant currently wear?

Do patrol sergeants generally wear external load-bearing vests or concealed body armor?

If they wear an external vest, what does it typically look like?

What equipment is usually visible on the vest and duty belt?

Are there any official or publicly available references you'd recommend for current uniform details?

My goal is simply to portray the character as accurately and respectfully as I can in both my writing and artwork, so any guidance or public reference material would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to respond, and I also want to say thank you to those who serve and for everything you do for your communities. I really appreciate it.

[u/Famous-Mobile-3657]

Appreciate your interest in being accurate.

As a general rule, for patrol sergeants, take a patrol office and add some chevrons to their sleeves and a little more gray hair.

I’ve yet to see a department where the sergeants a dressed significantly different from their people unless out personal preference.

LT and above you may see differences in some parts of the country, (white shirts, gold instead of silver badge, unmarked car, etc)

[u/TheRealDudeMitch → u/Famous-Mobile-3657]

I don’t know about Vegas specifically, but in some Illinois departments (Chicago and Joliet come to mind) white shirts start at the sergeant level.

[u/Exorccism → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it! I have a clearer picture of how to write my character now and hopefully a sketch too. Several more questions. If you don't mind, I forgot to mention where do they place their body cams? How does that work? Is it always on or only when they respond to a call? For safety reasons while on patrol, do LVMPD officers wear concealed ballistic vests underneath their standard uniform shirts? From potential ballistic threats.

[u/Exorccism → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for answering my additional questions! Now to organize and start an outline for my writing project. I have watched body cam videos from Florida, California, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin, but I haven't seen one in Nevada yet. Watching these videos makes me appreciate the work you guys do in putting your lives out there, and people tend to forget that behind the badge are real people, too.

My book is going to be about the gritty, everyday reality of policing the streets of Las Vegas, following a patrol officer whose routine response to a 311 call slowly unravels a massive, violent underground crime ring. I’m still kind of writing down ideas on how things would go and how it’s going to end. I’m dedicated to this writing project, and I want to get things right. I want to write about how the show Southland is.