LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Las Vegas taxpayers are footing the bill for yet another payout stemming from the June 2025 ICE protest in downtown Las Vegas — this time, $20,000 to settle a claim against a city corrections officer accused of using religion to threaten and intimidate people held in jail.
Our previous reporting detailed Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department payouts to protesters totaling nearly half a million dollars. But this settlement involves the City of Las Vegas directly, not Metro police. It centers on City Corrections Officer Bernabe Ibarra, who is accused of preaching a six-minute religious sermon to detainees — even after at least one tried to opt out.
Watch the Channel 13 investigation:
Kathleen Cavalaro attended the protest that night carrying a sign that read "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself." Body camera video shows how the sign became a shield against pepper balls — 48 of them, according to court records — fired by SWAT Officer Mark Eshe and then-Deputy Chief Bryan Peterson. Court records also say Peterson shot her in the back as she was following orders and walking away.
As officers moved to arrest her, Cavalaro can be heard on body camera video asking:
"You're shooting me? What am I under arrest for? Because I called you a fascist?"
She was zip-tied and arrested, then taken to the Las Vegas City Jail.
Federal lawsuit filed
Cavalaro later filed a federal lawsuit against LVMPD, the City of Las Vegas, Peterson, Eshe and Officer Joel Tomlinson. The suit accuses Tomlinson of falsifying the declaration of arrest by backdating the time and moving the location into the dispersal zone to "manufacture" probable cause for a "failure to disperse" arrest.
The city declined to prosecute. Her lawsuit says Tomlinson filed a second declaration that still contained false or misleading information, omitted Peterson's role, and conflicted with body camera video. No charges were filed after that, either.
Cavalaro cannot discuss that portion of her federal case because it remains pending. But she can speak to the part that was settled in her favor on Oct. 7.
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Overcrowded cells and an unexpected sermon
"There were approximately 100 of us that were put in holding cells in rooms that were over capacity," Cavalaro said. "And they held us pretty close to the 24 hours that they could."
Despite a Las Vegas Municipal Court order requiring protesters to be released on their own recognizance, her lawsuit says the city kept her in custody at least nine more hours. Jail security video she obtained through her lawsuit shows what happened after she was finally moved from her cell.
"They released about 20 of us together, and they brought us down and sat us at the tables," Cavalaro said. "And that's when the correctional officer came in and started preaching a sermon to us, and brought in a jail chaplain and two church volunteers."
Her lawsuit accuses Ibarra of delivering the six-minute sermon even after she tried to opt out.
"I thought I made it pretty clear that I was uncomfortable and did not want to participate, but it happened anyway," Cavalaro said.
The jail footage has no audio, but it does show Ibarra delivering the sermon.
"It was very strange religious language to me, because it was a lot of, like, 'I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,'" Cavalaro said. "But the general message was that we had misbehaved, and Jesus would be disappointed in us, and that there is nothing we could do to change the system, that we should all go home and we should pray instead."
Implying the language of prayer is OK, but the language of protest is not.
"And that we were on a pathway of spending the rest of our life in prison if we continued to go to protests," Cavalaro said.
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ACLU warns of First Amendment fallout
Nevada ACLU executive director Athar Haseebullah warned that protests are likely to increase, and that aggressive law enforcement responses risk putting agencies in unnecessary legal jeopardy.
"In some of these protests, local law enforcement is not the target of the protest, so by sort of responding in an incredibly aggressive way — in a harmful way — in a way that violates the First Amendment and violates civil liberties and civil rights more broadly," Haseebullah said, "they will unnecessarily make themselves a part of the story."
And part of Kathleen's federal lawsuit.
Watch the body camera footage obtained by Channel 13 in January as federal lawsuits challenge police tactics against protesters:
'Using Jesus as a weapon'
"I think that using Jesus as a weapon against people in custody is harmful," Cavalaro said. "Because if you're a Christian, it's taking something that is sacred and turning it into a tool of intimidation. And if you are not a religious person, it's imposing a religious message onto people who, at that moment, are under complete government control."
After accusing the city and Ibarra of weaponizing religion against detainees, Cavalaro received an offer of judgment. The city called it "not an admission of liability," but "an offer of compromise."
The payout was $20,000 of taxpayer money.
"It's just time for people to actually open up their eyes and see that there are no consequences, and it's costing them money," Cavalaro said. "So, whatever side you're on: if you believe police should be able to act however they want with no consequences, I think everyone agrees that at some point we should stop paying for this behavior."
The city has no policy addressing religious sermons delivered by corrections officers to inmates. An on-camera interview with city officials was requested, but the city declined and would not make Ibarra available. He remains employed as a city corrections officer.
