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Tesla: Journalists Trespassed At Gigafactory, Assaulted Employees (teslamotors.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Telsa Motors has published a blog post saying that a pair of journalists from the Reno Gazette Journal trespassed on the grounds of the company's new Gigafactory and attacked security workers with their vehicle when confronted. "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, knocking him over, causing him to sustain a blow to the left hip, an approximate 2" bleeding laceration to his right forearm, a 3" bleeding laceration to his upper arm, and scrapes on both palms." Officials from the Sheriff's Department arrived shortly after this happened and arrested one of the trespassers for felony assault. The RGJ has a story about the altercation as well, confirming there was an altercation, but also noting, "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."
Your vehicle was damaged in the course of committing criminal trespass and vehicular assault? Count your blessings that you aren't being charged with attempted murder.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
They were Journalists from the Reno Gazette-Journal. This looks to me like neither side is telling the whole truth.
Your vehicle was damaged in the course of committing criminal trespass and vehicular assault? Count your blessings that you aren't being charged with attempted murder.
I dunno, depends on circumstance. If the employee broke the driver side window and tried to wrestle the driver out by cutting the seat belt, then a reasonable driver might fear for his life.
I'm going to wait a day or two and see if more facts come to light, before I make any judgements.
(Of course, *you* are welcome to make judgements any time.)
A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Louisiana when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage.
Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.
The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
A reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life.'
The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.'
The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page.
So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'
The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'
The journalist leaves.
The following morning the biker buys the paper to see news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:
U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH
It says in TFA they climbed a fence marked "private property" in order to take the pictures. It's hard to climb a fence while carrying a Jeep. Ergo the Jeep was most likely parked outside the grounds of the factory.
Or the grounds of the factory extend beyond the fenced in area and they were confronted after they left the fenced-in area but while their jeep was still parked on factory property.
From Tesla:
The two RGJ employees and the Tesla employee were then met at the Jeep by a second safety manager at the Gigafactory. The two Gigafactory safety managers asked the RGJ employees to wait before departing, as security management and the Sheriff’s Department were en route to the scene. Disregarding this request, the RGJ employees entered the Jeep. 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
So second safety manager pulls up and then when the RGJ folks try and get away somebody gets a license plate? No camera rolling? Sounds like an episode of Mayberry RFD or the Wacky Racers. Barney Fife would be proud. At least a real cop (Sheriff) arrested one of them. As I previously stated, Elon needs better security if he's concerned about trade secrets getting out or a better PR department onsite so that RGJ doesn't somehow think that they need to trespass.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Except when they're speeding cameras. Then they can capture a license plate on Pluto.
Mostly random stuff.
Pluto? That's a bit much. Maybe a Saturn.
(ba dump bump!)
On many construction sites there are "safety managers". Most of their job is walking around the site making sure everyone is following safety rules. The other part of their job is documenting safety violations. They are managers because they need the authority to tell any worker on site what they need to do to follow safety rules. What would you call someone like that if not "safety manager"?
It may not even have an electric grid hookup yet.
Do you even understand who is building this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cameras do not always capture plates well. This was security soon their job.
If you're getting struck by cars, you're not doing your job right. Having actually worked as a security guard before, I would have recorded the plate without endangering myself and not have obstructed the fleeing reporters in any way - though requesting that they stay for the police to question was reasonable. I would attempt to not be confrontational.
Tesla's security strikes me as being in the same boat as I was. They don't have the authority to stop someone from leaving the property. The request to stay for police and to record the car's license plate was as far as they should have gone.
It sounds like multiple parties were at fault. There should have been no occasion to hit two security employees and a company ATV because those should have been nowhere near the reporters' vehicle or path of egress.
Let's go over the Tesla blog entry in more detail:
The two RGJ employees and the Tesla employee were then met at the Jeep by a second safety manager at the Gigafactory. The two Gigafactory safety managers asked the RGJ employees to wait before departing, as security management and the Sheriffâ(TM)s Department were en route to the scene. Disregarding this request, the RGJ employees entered the Jeep. 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, knocking him over, causing him to sustain a blow to the left hip, an approximate 2â bleeding laceration to his right forearm, a 3â bleeding laceration to his upper arm, and scrapes on both palms.
As the RGJ employees fled the scene, their Jeep struck the ATV that carried the two safety managers. 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.
So here's what I see right away:
1) the first employee to be hit was standing behind the vehicle as it backed out. That sounds bad to me since the employee shouldn't have been there.
2) the ATV may have been blocking egress by the reporters' vehicle, but we can't tell.
3) One of the managers approached the vehicle after it had already struck at least two things. That was particularly dumb.
4) If the driver had intended to hurt someone, the injuries (the only damage from the vehicle described) would probably have been a lot more severe and likely the Sheriff's Department would have arrested the driver on a charge of assault and battery or even attempted murder rather than just assault. They may still do that, but the blog indicates a lesser charge was selected for some reason.
Having read Tesla's, the RLG, and the LVS's accounts (which basically was the sam as the other 2), it seems to me the situation escalated to the point it got out of hand. If the guard was writing down the plate I would find it hard to justify hitting the guard with the Jeep.Given the photographer was told the sheriff was on the way it seems to me the reasonable thing to do was to wait and let the sheriff sort out what happened. I doubt the sheriff's response time would be anything but quick given Tesla's clout.
What I don't understand is why the photographer felt it necessary to climb a fence to get a picture. I've shot photos through a fence and wonder what required getting closer? A 200mm tele give you good reach even at a distance. More to the point, most companies will give journalists tours and access to a site, even though you'll get a PR dog and pony show in most cases. But, as a journalist, you need to develop sources if you think something bad is going on. Someone will generally be willing to talk, if off the record, without you needing to trespass and then try to get away. I've cold called companies to get information and it is surprising what people will tell you. You just need to start putting the pieces together, ask more questions, and build a story.
It will be interesting to see what happened as more details come out.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I agree in part--security people are normally trained to stay out of harm's way and this illustrates exactly why they shouldn't put themselves in harms way for a license plate or to detain someone. But I would also say that:
a) You can't legally just drive over people, even if they're doing something they shouldn't be. It's hard to reconcile the "rock attack" with any part of the stories, other than the collision with the ATV. You can't really hit the driver's window (or cut their seat belt) from behind the car.
b) The fact that they injured multiple people is worrisome. You can say that running over the first guy was an accident, but it's less credible the second time you hit someone and nobody alleges that both injuries were sustained at the same time.
c) We need more facts, especially camera recordings (if any), to see what's going on here, or at least a detailed reconstruction of the scene of the accident. The police should have taken lots of pictures of the state of everything, so it shouldn't be too hard to see where exactly the blood stains, rocks (if any), skid marks, etc. were found.
But just for right now, we have several injured guards and no injured reporters. I don't know about the "rock attack" bit of the story, it doesn't add up yet. So it's certainly possible the guards did something legally wrong, but the two stories disagree and there's no corroborating evidence other than the car itself. We'll know if any evidence is found for the "rock attack" because charges will probably get filed if they can substantiate their claims of being attacked first.
I would tend to reserve judgement until the evidence is presented at trial, but I do see it being problematic that the guards are hurt and the reporters are not and neither side appears to dispute the claim that the reporters caused injury to the guards. If, as they say, they were attacked first, why is it that they are unable to allege any specific bodily injury as a result?
I use the same logic when someone is arrested for "resisting arrest" and the injuries sustained are completely disproportionate (i.e. one party is unhurt and the other party is severely hurt). If you were actually attacked, there should be some evidence of injury. Similarly, when one side tries to flee before the cops arrive--a part of the story that neither side appears to dispute--they become automatically suspect for that very reason.
There should have been no occasion to hit two security employees and a company ATV because the reporters shouldn't have been on the property in the first place. Regardless of how the situation escalated, the incident was ultimately precipitated by the reporters trespassing.
The original infraction was trespassing. The obvious resolution for trespassing is to get the trespasser off the property. Charging them with criminal trespass is secondary. So whether the security guards had authority to stop someone from leaving the property was irrelevant - their primary goal should've been to get the reporters to leave. Which they were apparently trying to do at the time the injuries were sustained, when the guards tried to stop them.
If the security cameras in place were insufficient to grab a license plate and photos of the trespassers' faces, then that should've been something for the security guards to bring up at the next manager's meeting so it could be addressed in the future. We're not talking about thieves making off with the crown jewels, we're talking about a couple guys being where they're not supposed to be (at the time of the incident the security guards probably had no way to know these were reporters - anyone can print out an official-looking ID). There was no need for heroics on the part of the security guards. Chasing the reporters out should have been sufficient this time, with the incident providing ammo for the guards' request for better cameras and (perhaps) a gate at the entrance.
I've managed a 50 acre resort and have had to deal with trespassers (mostly high school kids from the neighborhood sneaking into the pool). The vast majority of them leave when asked. There is no reason to escalate the situation unless they refuse to leave or start destroying property. Unless they are causing or have caused physical damage, I really don't understand why you would want to stop them from leaving. Even if they cuss at you and flip you off, there's no reason to escalate things - being a jerk is not a crime.
I've managed a 50 acre resort and have had to deal with trespassers (mostly high school kids from the neighborhood sneaking into the pool). The vast majority of them leave when asked. There is no reason to escalate the situation unless they refuse to leave or start destroying property.
Your 50 acre resort probably didn't have trade secrets to protect and didn't have to be concerned about competition and other people sneaking in to discover ways to harm your business.
Tesla has that concern, so they need better security.
In Italy they would, and they would prosecute all physicists as accomplices.
Both the "rock attack" and the cut seatbelt probably occurred when the police arrived. The reporters probably wouldn't exit the vehicle so the cops broke the window and cut the seat belt to pull the driver out. This is a reasonably common police tactic when someone refuses to exit a vehicle.
The reason I doubt it was the security guards is the reporting from the RGJ. They don't report their employee's version - they ask the Sheriff and say he "can't confirm how that damage occurred". So I'd say the police broke the window, probably not with a rock, and then they cut the seatbelt and pulled the driver from the vehicle. At least that is the most plausible version of events.