There’s a certain kind of silence in Nevada’s wide-open country—the kind a man welcomes when he’s watching the sun sink behind a range of stubborn hills and the kind that makes him check his revolver twice when trouble comes knocking.
But there’s another silence, more insidious and less welcome—the silence of a state government when a sheriff calls for backup. Sheriff Bill Ferguson of Mineral County has had enough of the latter.
In a letter that rings with the frustration of a man left to hold the line alone, Ferguson calls out the Nevada State Police for abandoning rural communities to fend for themselves.
“I have repeatedly reached out to the Governor’s Office for answers, only to be met with deafening silence,” he wrote. “That silence ends now.”
The sheriff’s ire is well-earned. Two recent shootings have rocked his sparsely manned department, the latest unfolding on U.S. 6 near the California border. When Ferguson called for assistance from the Nevada State Police, he met with the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug.
“It’s a county issue,” they told him, as though state highways were separate from the counties they run through.
Not one to take a brush-off lightly, Ferguson turned to another state agency, only to be told they too were short-staffed. It’s not just another excuse because it’s the same one he’s been giving for years.
Once patrolled by twenty deputies, Mineral County now limps by with just seven. Ferguson knows what it means to stretch a thin line thinner, but there comes a point when stretching turns to snapping.
“This crisis is not just about Mineral County – it’s about every rural community in Nevada being abandoned and forgotten,” he warns.
And he ain’t wrong. If the state government thinks small-town law can handle growing crime with dwindling resources, it may soon learn what happens when stretched-thin deputies decide the paycheck isn’t worth the risk.
Meanwhile, in the kind of story that underscores the sheriff’s point, a man in Walker Lake tried his hand at midnight mischief and nearly added murder to his repertoire. On Wednesday at about 1 a.m., a Scotty’s RV Park resident woke to the sound of an uninvited guest.
The park manager arrived to help, only to have the suspect whip out a gun and start shooting. Fortunately, the two managed to escape and summon law enforcement. Ferguson’s deputies—understaffed but undeterred—found the gunman, Cameron Aguilar, prowling I Street and hauled him to the Mineral County Detention Facility on attempted murder and a laundry list of other felonies.
The gun, however, remains missing. Deputies, helped by a Carson City K9 and drone, scoured the area to no avail.
Now, the sheriff is turning to the people—those citizens who are supposed to trust the state to keep them safe. Residents of I through K Streets in Hawthorne should check their properties for the missing firearm, as the Sheriff’s Office is offering a $1,500 reward for its recovery.
Ferguson has made his stand. Whether Nevada’s government will answer or keep its cowardly silence remains to be seen.
When the law calls for help but the state turns its back, it isn’t just one county left in the lurch–it’s every Nevadan who dares to live beyond the city lights, counting on a badge to mean something when the shooting starts.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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