Saw the headline assumed that it was an overstatement and that reading the article would show that someone just give someone else a little shove or something. After all this is on Teslas website, so you'd expect them to portray the situation the way they want it to be seen.
Turns out the title isn't sensational, it probably should be something like "newspaper employees attempt to run over Tesla security guards". They actually UNDERPLAYED it.
Did this make any kind of national news? Seems like a pretty good store that you'd expect the media to be repeating.
"The newspaper’s vehicle was damaged in the altercation. A rock had been used to shatter the driver’s-side window and the driver’s-side seat belt had been cut in half.
[Storey County Sheriff] Antinoro said he couldn’t confirm how that damage occurred."
To be fair, if I tried to run over someone, I'd expect them to be less than pleased...
If the rock and seat belt incident had happened before you would expect RGJ to be saying as much as it would make them look less culpable so it stands to reason it happened after.
It also stands to reason that they do not know, and no other papers have been able to confirm it that I could find.
I'd expect it to make the most legal sense for Tesla to avoid posting this, if it is in fact true, until the case has been prosecuted. (I am not a lawyer.)
While I like Tesla, it seems like one of those situations where it is best to take a statement like this with a grain of salt until more information is released by a party other than Tesla.
I do find it surprising that most people here aren't more skeptical since it feels like something is missing.
It's at least partly because Tesla has built up a reputation for being pretty honest and accurate, and not wildly misrepresenting the facts. Tesla has a lot more to lose here than the RGJ, boldly making false accusations seems like the kind of thing that would turn a minor blip into a PR disaster, and that's not really their style (but of course that's just speculation).
I would expect the RGJ to defend themselves and their guy a bit more, if they had reason to (since the Tesla post is pretty damning), but perhaps they are waiting for more information. Time will tell.
I think Tesla's entire account sounded like the truth washed with as much bias and bullshit as their legal department could get away with. I'm not trying to excuse the actions of the RGJ employees here, they should be prosecuted appropriately for both crimes.
> As the Tesla employee attempted to record the license plate number on the rear bumper, the driver put it in reverse and accelerated into the Tesla employee
I'd suggest it's more likely that reversing out was required to leave and the security officer moved behind primarily to stop them from leaving. Again it's still illegal to drive over human beings but it can also be a nearly simultaneous thing not necessarily a premeditated and psychotic choice on the part of the driver.
> As the RGJ employees fled the scene, their Jeep struck the ATV that carried the two safety managers.
Wait I thought he was on the ground bleeding out from his multiple 2-3" lacerations? Is it also possible that the ATV struck the jeep or drove in front on the jeep and caused the collision because the security wanted to detain them? Perhaps the ATV catching up to a fleeing jeep was not engaging in the safest behavior?
> When one of the safety managers dismounted the ATV and approached the Jeep, the driver of the Jeep accelerated into him, striking him in the waist.
I'm sorry this reminds me too much of dozens of police reports of "driver tried to run over officer, officer forced to use his gun" which is sometimes true but it far too many cases turns out to be complete bullshit.
Again I don't want to apologize for the illegal and dangerous actions of the RGJ employees here but (1) this isn't the whole story and (2) I think it's absolutely ridiculous that Tesla has their secur-- err "safety" staff heading people off at the pass in ATV's and risking their lives over some illegal photos. It's also possible that my skepticism is misplaced and Tesla is not exaggerating here and RGJ employees engaged in exactly the behavior described.
>> As the RGJ employees fled the scene, their Jeep struck the ATV that carried the two safety managers.
> Wait I thought he was on the ground bleeding out from his multiple 2-3" lacerations?
How about: one officer down, other inside the ATV which was parked, maybe or maybe not blocking off the jeep?
> I'm sorry this reminds me too much of dozens of police reports of "driver tried to run over officer, officer forced to use his gun".
Except here it's the officers who got hurt. Damage was pretty one-directional.
I guess I trust Tesla on this one so far - they have pretty much a perfect record of being honest-to-God and fair, which is quite unusual as companies go. Definitely not trusting the journalists though. Ultimately, we'll see how this plays out in court.
Also, I wonder what Elon has to say about it. He also has a track record of being honest, so this would be a good data point.
Tesla is a party to the incident and has a reason to spin it as far in their favor as possible. Their account also completely omits any mention of the window of the jeep being broken with a rock and the driver's side seat belt being severed so idk why we should just swallow their account on it's face.
How about trusting a source that doesn't have a dog in the race? Here's ars technica's writeup:
You can read that and see it's a lot more neutral than Tesla's blog post. It reports tesla's side and also info from RGJ's article and supplements that with comments from the sheriff.
> they have pretty much a perfect record of being honest-to-God and fair
> Tesla is a party to the incident and has a reason to spin it as far in their favor as possible.
They have, but the reason many people, myself included, trust them is that they didn't follow such reasons in the past. Honesty is being accurate even if you have a reason to spin.
> Their account also completely omits any mention of the window of the jeep being broken with a rock and the driver's side seat belt being severed so idk why we should just swallow their account on it's face.
That's why I say we'll see how it plays out in court. Facts will (hopefully) be uncovered. I'm not assuming Tesla is definitely 100% right; this may be the case when they start bullshitting like every other company. I'm only trusting they're honest here given that they've been honest before, which is not industry-standard practice.
> The hero worship is real.
It's not hero worship, it's trusting those who've proven themselves trustworthy.
> it's trusting those who've proven themselves trustworthy.
Tesla has a long history of exaggeration and broken promises and describing them as having a 'perfect record of being honest-to-God' borders on the farcial.
> Wait I thought he was on the ground bleeding out from his multiple 2-3" lacerations?
There were at least three people present, the one behind them was there all along, the two in the ATV came later. The person with the lacerations and injured palms was behind the car when, according to Tesla, they accelerated into him. The two people in the ATV were in front of the car. It becomes more difficult to claim the injuries inflicted were accidental when they manage two separate 'accidents' in a small amount of time, but we'll have to see the accident reconstruction to see whose claims hold up.
> Again I don't want to apologize for the illegal and dangerous actions of the RGJ employees here but (1) this isn't the whole story and (2) I think it's absolutely ridiculous that Tesla has their secur-- err "safety" staff heading people off at the pass in ATV's and risking their lives over some illegal photos. It's also possible that my skepticism is misplaced and Tesla is not exaggerating here and RGJ employees engaged in exactly the behavior described.
Wanting to read both accounts is reasonable and fair. RGJ has their own account which you can read here:
While you're right that security should be trained not to do dangerous things like this over simple trespass for this exact reason, the big problem here is that both accounts of the story say that the RGJ journalists hit Tesla employees with a car.
That's lethal force.
Unless they can show something like being in reasonable fear for their lives (or grievous bodily injury), the driver is in big trouble. Nobody has alleged that the Tesla guards were trying to kill or maim the journalists. There's a mention that a rock was used on a window and a seat belt was cut, but neither side alleges any injury to the journalists or a threat thereof.
So it is sort of like when you have someone 'resisting arrest' and only one side is injured. But here, only the cops are injured. I would normally give the injured side the benefit of any doubt when only one side shows injury, but that's only when there's doubt and they can show evidence to overcome that burden. The Tesla guards were injured and they had lethal force used against them.
While we should wait to see what new facts come to light, the uncontested parts of the two stories paint spell serious legal trouble for the driver. Neither account disputes that the RGJ driver used lethal force against and caused injury to Tesla security guards in an altercation over claims of trespass. That's worrisome.
It probably should be something like "newspaper employees attempt to run over Tesla security guards".
"Run over"? The Tesla statement asserts they "accelerated into" the victims in both cases. Which is pretty nasty, but quite different from "running them over."
You can't even infer that it was an "attempt" to run over the persons who were struck, from the information given. Most likely the driver simply panicked, and was trying to make some crazy Y turn to get the hell out of there -- without of course slowing down to look at who might have been in front of, or behind him.
Not that that's any excuse. The driver's actions appear to have been highly reckless, to say the least. But there's no point in playing this episode up into something that it wasn't.
They did injure at least two people with a car and one of them was while reversing. Because you normally don't accelerate while reversing, I think it will be hard for them to call this an accident if the physical evidence corroborates Tesla's version of the story.
If it were just one person, I'd be more inclined to claim it was purely accidental. Once there were two separate incidents where they hit someone, the claim of it being an accident gets less credible. I can believe that they might have been afraid, but attacking someone with a car is deadly force (as is confirmed by the charges).
So, at minimum, they'd have to show that the Tesla guards were trying to kill them or inflict grievous bodily harm. The fact that they did not allege any injury to themselves is going to really hurt their case unless they have some kind of evidence that they reasonably feared for their lives.
I'll reserve judgement until we hear more facts, but the uncontested parts of the story currently indicate that the driver is in big trouble. If new facts or evidence do not come to light, I would reasonable expect them to go to prison, barring a plea deal. The passenger is probably ok, though, other than trespass.
(1) "You normally don't accelerate while reversing" sounds odd to my ears: from my understanding of physics, one has to accelerate in the initial stages of moving either forward or backward.
(2) The first person was struck while recording the the car's license number (i.e. from behind the car); this increases the chance that the driver didn't see them. The second person was struck while "approaching" the car; also increasing the chance that the driver didn't see him. (As opposed to say: standing ahead and at a safe distance from the car, firmly and without moving, gesturing the driver to stop).
(3) "At minimum, they'd have to show that the Tesla guards were trying to kill them or inflict grievous bodily harm." -- No, they just have to say "We thought we'd be caught, and our careers would be ruined -- so we panicked. We beg our victims for forgiveness, and we beg the court for forbearance and mercy."
(4) I'm certainly not positing that this was an "accident" (let alone "purely accidental"). My reading is that it was most likely an incident of reckless driving, triggered by the fact that the reporters knew they were caught red-handed, and were desperate to escape (and quite likely simply panicking). And one can easily imagine scenarios where (in their haste) they simply didn't see either of the 2 persons -- one of whom was approaching the car; the other who was standing behind; both perhaps from skew angles.
We both agree that the driver's behavior was at least criminally negligent. I just don't see a need to introduce a narrative in which the driver intentionally or even knowingly struck either of the victims -- when the facts at hand do not, beyond a reasonable degree of doubt, support such an interpretation.
1) This is often used colloquially to mean 'used the accelerator'. In the very literal sense, yes, you must accelerate, but you can use the car's idle to reverse, rather than pressing the gas. I don't normally hit the gas pedal just to back up and I would know that doing so was dangerous if there were people around. Moreover they knew (or should have known) that people were nearby if they were fleeing, otherwise they had no reason to hurry.
2) This is possible which is why I said it merely reduces (rather than eliminates) the accident excuse.
For 3-4, I think it will come down to what the evidence shows about their intent. I found this explanation of Nevada law -
Tesla did give evidence of intent which the RGJ story did not rebut (accelerating in reverse & striking a person in front of them) and having injured two people at two different times is weak evidence against it being purely accidental. So it probably will come down to what can be shown regarding the driver's intent. Meanwhile, the passenger appears to only be on the hook for trespass, according to the reports.
That's not quite accurate: there were two separate instances where they hit someone with their jeep. Neither account disputes that part of the story.
We can reasonably say that the credibility of the accident theory goes down the more accidents one has in a short period of time.
That's not to say it couldn't have been an accident, but the very fact that there were two separate incidents is weak evidence against the claim of it being an accident.
The bigger problem, though, is that the driver used deadly force to attempt to escape and nobody alleges that Tesla's guards caused any injuries at all to the reporters. The closest allegation is that there was damage to their jeep.
> Once the Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene, they arrested one of the RGJ employees for two counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon
I'd have to say the police are right and you're wrong. Assault with a deadly weapon seems much more appropriate than attempted murder. Nobody died, there was no intention to kill anybody, and there was no action taken that was particularly likely to cause death. "Deadly weapon" covers it.
Why do you think aiming a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is attempted murder rather than assault with a deadly weapon? Attempted murder requires the intention to kill.
The situation has probably played itself very quickly and was full of split-second decisions. The journalists may had no intention to actually run anyone over; maybe they were trying to sneak between that ATV and a guard standing, and they miscalculated the turn. After they hit the first guy this whole thing probably turned into "Oh shit shit shit! What have we done?" situation; people without training tend to lose any rational thinking capabilities in those.
Actually, it's not. It's Murder 2, or Murder in the 2nd degree. Premeditation is Murder in the first degree. All that's required for murder is a) intent to harm (not premeditation), and b) death. Given that running over someone kills them, this is definitely attempted 2nd degree murder.
Edit: I forgot, intention to commit a felony carries premeditation, so it would even be attempted first degree murder
Typically premeditation determines 1st vs. 2nd degree murder.
Intent to harm without intent to kill typically corresponds to (voluntary) manslaughter. Reckless disregard or negligence of the potential for death may result in manslaughter or some lesser charge like involuntary manslaughter.
This differs by state; some have crimes like "3rd degree murder" or "2nd degree manslaughter", or "voluntary manslaughter" vs. "involuntary manslaughter".
There are also delightful variations where someone "sufficiently provoked" (adultery being the traditional example) would face manslaughter charges for what would otherwise be murder.
Given what little we know there is no suggestion of an actual intent to kill. Without such an intent how can you possibly suggest attempted murder? You have overreached massively. The logical conclusion of your reasoning is that any assault with a deadly weapon amounts to attempted murder.
In California it seems quite likely to be second degree attempted murder and aggravated battery; even if it was only the second, those offenses, taking into account the potential enhancement for great bodily injury enhancement, have overlapping ranges of potential sentences, so neither is necessarily more severe legally.
Wow, what stupid/terrible thing to do. I can't believe someone would seriously think that assaulting Tesla's employees is a good strategy to escape being prosecuted...
This is not unusual. Media scrums can be more mosh pit than journalism. There are always a few who act aggressively and have trouble turning that off once things get violent.
But I wouldn't absolve tesla. A cop would have been trained not to stand directly behind such a vehicle. Someone will surely look into the actions of these security guards to see if they perhaps went above their duties, or whether deploying security guards to deal with such a vehicle is ever appropriate. There are situations where non-cops are expected to stand aside.
Not what I was talking about. There are several issues, whether these trespassers committed a crime is just one. This is an on-the-job injury of an employee. Whether anything went wrong on the employer/employee side to contribute to this is a totally different evaluation. Whether these guards had the authority to seize the vehicle is another. The insurance companies that have to pay for the medical care will look into these questions. Note that Tesla is not describing these employees as heroes. Tesla (or whatever company trains/deploys these guards) might be on the hook for substantial costs.
No doubt this incident will result in new training and/or a serious rethink of how security guards are deployed in such situations.
Trespassing is tricky. Entering property without permission is illegal, but "permission" is not simple.
A pizza delivery person who goes to the wrong address is not trespassing, even if he walked past all manner of signs. But he certainly cannot jump over barbed wire or pick locks to gain entry. These reporters are not delivery men, but we need lots more facts before we can make any decision about whether or not they were trespassing prior to the confrontation with the security guards.
They were certainly trespassing after they refused to leave. We don't know whether they are being charged for trespass prior to or after the guards got involved. It is probably moot given what happened, but criminal trespass does have all sorts of fine points.
I agree they certainly aren't the wayward pizza guy, but it is still far from simple.
"Private Property" signs are something different than "No Public Admitted". Any mall has a private property sign, that doesn't mean people aren't allowed in.
I'm a unsure about the location of the Jeep. It sounds like they drove into Tesla's parking lot, then proceeded on foot towards the factory. If the lot was open to the public (no gate) then the initial trespass is far from clear. Climbing a fence weights towards trespass, but I want to see more about this fence. If it was the sort of barb-wire fence normally found around factories, how did they do this? Or was it a small sort of fence meant to direct foot traffic around grassy areas.
If they instead parked on the street it gets even more complex. If they walked in on foot and were asked to leave, they appear to have done so. So they were not trespassing after being confronted by guards. And that would place the physical altercation off of tesla property, totally complicating the liability issues. If you seek to detain someone you don't normally allow them to leave the proper, let alone them access their vehicle.
Dude, the Tesla employees just asked them to wait for the sheriff to arrive. It's not like they jumped on the hood of the car. Writing down the license plate number should not get you run over.
It's not a matter of who is better or more justified than the other person. A hurt employee is never a good thing. It is rarely justified. When you employee security guards, the absolutely last thing you want is them being hurt. This isn't the wild west. They are not to put their lives on the line to defend your factory. Sometime that means not doing the justified thing. Sometimes that means backing off and letting the police handle things. If that means retreating if and when a trespasser enters a vehicle, so be it. If that isn't in the manual now, it will be soon.
( I do know that retail security guards are regularly trained not to peruse thieves into parking lots precisely because of dangers created once vehicles are involved. )
But what part of standing behind a vehicle in order to write down the license plate is "pursuing a vehicle? What action is left that would be acceptable in your manual...duck and cover?
That is pretty much the manual. Watch a cop after pulling someone over. They never stand in front or behind the car. They stand beside, and even then only if the driver turns off the engine. A security guard dealing with a trespasser in a vehicle should probably act much the same. If the trespasser is in a vehicle, it might be time for them to retreat or at least get into their own vehicles if available.
If they are not trained in how to approach and deal with suspected wrongdoers driving cars, something that is not uncommon in large facilities, that lack of training is a serious issue for their employers.
Upvoted. While the guilty party is obviously the one driving over the other, it may be so that the security personel Tesla employs, or at least the particular one here lack the training to handle situations like this without getting hurt. I say "may be so", not "is true", because we don't really know how the encounter played itself, but if indeed the guard was standing directly behind the car it suggests less than best practice. It's not really unexpected - most security guards aren't properly trained to handle actual danger, not in the way police is. This suggests potential area of improvement.
Still, my heart goes to those hurt and I wish them quick recovery and no permanent damage.
I'm not sure who is downvoting you, but you're right. It's a really bad idea to pursue people as a security guard precisely because you may get hurt and I thought pretty much all of them were trained very strictly not to do this. No employer wants their employees to get injured over this kind of thing. There is good evidence that the guards here were not well-trained.
I think the uncontested parts of the story say that the driver is in big trouble here for using lethal force against them, but I also think the guards should be trained not to put themselves in harm's way.
Downvoting is an emotional act. It is the easiest thing to do when you cannot or are unwilling articulate a response. In my experience people get most angry when they are forced to revisit their own views. I choose to see the occasional spat of quick downvotes only as an indication that I have touched a nerve. But thanks for the upvote all the same.
Yeah, I'm not even a security guard and yet I know that part of the training. It has come up many times when some guard gets injured while chasing a shoplifter or whatever and the story makes the news.
We don't know the situation of the vehicle. Maybe backing up was the only reasonable way to escape from what the journalist thought was a dangerous situation. No Idea if this is true, just playing devils advocate in the interest of preventing a digital lynch mob.
Sorry, I can appreciate some devil's advocacy, but I'm just not buying it here. Assuming the Tesla employee was unarmed (which I think is a safe assumption), then there's nothing potentially dangerous enough to justify running someone over rather than wait the few minutes for law enforcement to arrive. Even if you think you are being falsely imprisoned, I don't think you are justified in running someone over rather than wait a few minutes for law enforcement if you are not in immediate danger.
You are assuming that the 'running someone over' was deliberate. We don't have enough information for such determinations. It may have been accidental, or more likely criminally negligent, but we shouldn't assume deliberate attack without all the facts.
We do have them hitting two different people on two different occasions. That's not iron-clad by any means, but it is evidence that weighs against the accident theory.
One detail is that Tesla alleges that they 'accelerated' in reverse. This is completely abnormal and if it can be corroborated by the physical evidence, it will be very troublesome for the driver.
Further, I have to believe that Tesla has no shortage of people who know about accident reconstruction and who can determine the idle speed & mass of the jeep and compare that with the force needed to cause skid marks or to have knocked the employee whatever distance. If they were to do that, it would be very interesting because we all know just how skilled their engineers are, from Elon on down.
The escape re trespassing is an interesting point. If a guard tells someone to leave, fleeing is a form of leaving. I could see a defense attorney argue that they were not trespassing post-confrontation as they attempted to leave as soon as they were told so to do. It's a vicious argument, but that's what they are for.
> This is not unusual. Media scrums can be more mosh pit than journalism.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. There was not a scheduled media event at the factory; the journalists were stopped after traveling there on their own.
I mean to say that there is a breed of journalist that is very aggressive. They have a military us-and-them mentality and pursue things where rational people would stop. That is the type that, once caught doing something wrong, keeps up a fight where any rational person would calm down.
Turns out the title isn't sensational, it probably should be something like "newspaper employees attempt to run over Tesla security guards". They actually UNDERPLAYED it.
Did this make any kind of national news? Seems like a pretty good store that you'd expect the media to be repeating.
Wow.