THUMBS DOWN to the security guards at the site of Tesla’s giant battery factory, which is under construction east of Sparks.
The guards got into a struggle with a Reno Gazette-Journal photographer and reporter at the site. Tesla contends the journalists were trespassing and were the aggressors, striking the guards and their ATV with a vehicle.
The newspaper’s attorney, in a letter to Tesla, said Tesla’s version “could not be further from the truth.” The attorney said the guards rammed the journalists’ vehicle with an ATV before forcing it to stop and forcibly removed the photographer, who was driving, and planted him “face-first in the dirt with a knee or foot in his back.”
We obviously didn’t see what happened. But evidence from the newspaper’s vehicle raises doubts about Tesla’s version because the driver’s side window of the vehicle was smashed and the driver’s side seat belt was severed.
We can envision security guards getting out of control after spending hours doing boring routine surveillance and counting jackrabbits. And we can envision journalists asserting their constitutionally protected right to do their jobs.
If it turns out that the guards were the “lawless renegades,” as the newspaper’s attorney says, we hope they get what’s coming to them in the form of serious criminal charges and a civil lawsuit.
If you want to accuse us of going out of our way to side with our colleagues in the newspaper business, we’re okay with that. We consider defending other journalists and the news-gathering process to be a duty. It’s a duty we take seriously, particularly when violence is involved.
THUMPS UP to the local members of the U.S. Navy League who raised money so a 92-year-old man from Minnesota could travel to Northern Nevada and scratch an item off his bucket list.
Charles Sehe was an 18-year-old seaman second class when he was nearly killed aboard the USS Nevada when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Sehe, a retired anatomy professor, wanted to visit the state for which the battleship was named. He made the trip to Nevada earlier this month.
“I don’t want to go to Las Vegas,” Sehe said after his plane landed at the Reno airport. “You have the memorabilia here that I want to see.”
Sehe is not only a proud Pearl Harbor survivor, he’s also a man of good judgment when it comes to knowing the best part of Nevada to put on a bucket list. Thank you for your service, Professor Sehe.
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