A Clark County School District police officer brought a Legacy High School student to the ground and wedged his baton under the boy’s arm to handcuff him.

The officer, Daniel Ciarciaglini, was seeking a student accused of making a shooting hand gesture toward a class. But police later determined that the boy was innocent of the accusation.

That arrest four years ago was one of at least 16 times Ciarciaglini has been investigated by his department for a use of force.

Was he ever justified in his actions? The school district won’t say.

Officials in the district’s public records department have refused to provide and unredact key files that would shed light on Ciarciaglini’s conduct, show how the department evaluated his uses of force and say whether he faced any punishments for his actions across 16 documented encounters that were provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal through a public records request.

The school district also has refused to produce incident reports and body-camera footage associated with 13 of these uses of force, claiming they contain confidential juvenile justice information.

Ciarciaglini is a defendant in at least three lawsuits, two of which claim he used excessive force in his job as a school police officer. Fourteen of Ciarciaglini’s documented uses of force were against juveniles, while two were during traffic stops with adults.

He has been employed by the district since 2014. He is currently assigned to home with pay, a district spokesperson said last week, declining to elaborate.

Ciarciaglini and attorneys representing him could not be reached for comment.

School police’s investigative documents provide an incomplete picture of the officer’s conduct when unaccompanied by incident reports, body-camera video or a department analysis of the officer’s actions.

Review-Journal Chief Legal Officer Ben Lipman said Nevada law states that the school district must turn over these records, “and we don’t think that government should be violating the law.”

“Getting these records is the only way for the public to ensure that the school district and law enforcement are properly doing their jobs, enforcing the laws properly against any students who might actually be involved in wrongdoing and ensuring that the government isn’t violating anyone’s rights,” Lipman said.

The district produced 16 force investigations analysis and training reviews involving Ciarciaglini in response to a public records request. These reviews, conducted by the school police department, describe an officer’s use of force and apply their actions to the Graham standard, a legal benchmark used to determine whether an officer’s force was reasonable.

However, sections of the reviews that detail how school police applied the Graham standard to Ciarciaglini’s conduct and their conclusion on his use of force remain blacked out despite efforts by the Review-Journal to get the district to unredact them.

The district has argued that those sections are protected by deliberative process privilege and contain confidential information about juvenile justice and employment.

“Even if there is a public interest in disclosure of the analysis and conclusion section of the FIAT reports, any public interest is outweighed by the officer’s significant, nontrivial privacy interests in avoiding embarrassment, harassment, and stigma if disclosure occurs,” the school district has maintained. “CCSDPD also has a significant interest in preventing disclosure, as it may impede investigations and negatively impact employee morale.”

Lipman said: “The Nevada Supreme Court has said that the deliberative process privilege does not apply in situations where the government’s actions are in question and that it does not apply to ‘a particular personnel matter.’ Yet, that is exactly what CCSD is claiming it applies to.”

The school district also has refused to produce incident reports and body-camera footage for 13 of Ciarciaglini’s 16 documented uses of force. Of the remaining three, two involved adults and one involved a child who was not arrested.

District records officials have said they cannot share incident reports and body-camera recordings involving arrested juvenile students because they contain confidential juvenile justice information.

The district has withheld the reports and recordings in their entirety and argued that the confidential information contained in them is “inextricably intertwined with any non-confidential information” such that redactions would “leave the requester with nothing to review.”

Lipman said the school district has not even attempted to meet the government’s burden of showing that the documents contain legitimately confidential information that cannot be redacted.

“If they legitimately think there is some confidential information in these records, the most they can do is redact it, but they still have to produce the rest,” Lipman said.

Lack of disclosure has produced deficient retellings of Ciarciaglini’s uses of force, such as a 2022 arrest where he quickly handcuffed a calm boy who was accused of trespassing and being aggressive with an assistant principal at Legacy High School.

The review described the boy’s relaxed hand atop the wrist of the assistant principal, who showed no fear or stress. Nevertheless, Ciarciaglini immediately placed a handcuff on the boy.

When the boy tensed up and began to lean away from Ciarciaglini, the officer quickly threw him to the ground “with significant force,” the review file said. A woman gasped when the boy hit the floor. He hollered in pain, though medical personnel found no reason to transport the boy for treatment.

In another instance, Ciarciaglini grabbed a student by the neck and pepper sprayed several others at Centennial High School’s homecoming football game against the Legacy Longhorns on Sept. 3, 2021.

Under the Friday night lights, a fight broke out among attendees at halftime, and Ciarciaglini cleared a path through students toward the brawl.

He grabbed a student by the neck who had tried twice to push the officer away. Holding the boy by the neck for seven seconds, Ciarciaglini shoved the student backward against a chainlink fence, brought him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Minutes later, another fight started and Ciarciaglini rushed toward the scuffle and pepper sprayed the crowd.

“He was concerned the crowd was going to trample him,” the review said. Police could not identify who was fighting.

Again, the school district refused to reveal the evaluation that determined whether Ciarciaglini’s actions were justified.

Lawsuits allege misconduct

In the three lawsuits filed against Ciarciaglini, he is accused of excessive force, battery and false arrest, among other claims.

One filed last year alleges Ciarciaglini unlawfully arrested a man after the man pulled over to film Ciarciaglini conduct a traffic stop. Another, filed in August, contends Ciarciaglini struck a student on a motorized bike with his unmarked patrol car and omitted the crash in his investigation.

Ciarciaglini and the school district, defendants in both lawsuits, legally denied these claims of misconduct, online court filings show.

The third, filed in July by Robert Scalise, stemmed from an April 10, 2025, traffic stop near Legacy High School. The lawsuit alleged that Scalise was pulled over for driving 6 mph over the school zone limit. His shoulder, which had limited motion from 2016 injuries, was hurt again after the officer “drove him chest- and knee-first into the concrete.” Ciarciaglini’s incident report said four of the officer’s fingers were scratched from the arrest.

After the arrest, Ciarciaglini appeared to fist-bump another school police officer, according to body-camera footage reviewed by the Review-Journal.

Whether school police punished Ciarciaglini or saw his actions as justified is unknown; a section of the review titled “Unlawful Arrest / Detention &Excessive Use of Force” is redacted in its entirety by the school district.

The “What Are They Hiding?” column was created to educate Nevadans about transparency laws, inform readers about Review-Journal coverage being stymied by bureaucracies and shame public officials into being open with the hardworking people who pay all of government’s bills. Were you wrongly denied access to public records? Share your story with us at whataretheyhiding@reviewjournal.com.

Contact Spencer Levering at slevering@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253.