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A Wendover man’s outing with his son to a local shooting range turned into an 18 hour ordeal and again raises criticism of an over zealous police force.
According to local police reports Jay C. Kelsey was arrested Sunday for DUI on Wendover Boulevard. Kelsey also had a loaded rifle in his vehicle when officers pulled him over, said West Wendover Police Sgt. David Wiskerchen.
According to Nevada law it is felony in to carry a loaded rifle or shotgun in a vehicle. It’s also illegal to possess a firearm when you are under the influence of alcohol. Kelsey was booked on both additional charges.
His bail at the Elko County Jail was set at $6,878.
While not contesting the DUI charge Kelsey’s family has called the incident an over reach by local police.
“He just went out target shooting with his son,” said the accused man’s sister Kelly. “Yes he had a few beers and could have been over the legal limit. But nothing my brother did warranted the treatment he received.”
According to Ms. Kelsey her brother was handcuffed for five hours and then at 1 am was transported to the Elko County Jail for booking.
“His wrists are still bruised from the shackling,” she added. “There was no reason for that.”
Kelsey also disputes the loaded weapons charge insisting that while there may have been bullets in the weapons’ magazines there were no bullets in their chambers.
Again according to Nevada law a firearm is not considered loaded unless there is a bullet in the chamber ready for firing. An assault rifle with a full 30 magazine clip is not considered a loaded weapon unless there is a round in the chamber.
“They are trying to make my bother out to be some kind of terrorist,” Kelsey said. “When all he did was have a few beers while target shooting with his son. Yes it was wrong to drink and drive but come on let’s show a little common sense.”
According to the Wendover business woman the search of the vehicle was also conducted without benefit of warrant.
“The guns were secured safely under the seat,” she added. “There was simply no way they were visible during the stop.”
That distinction is important. In federal and state rulings police do not have a right to search a vehicle without a warrant or the permission of the driver unless suspicious material can be viewed in plain sight by law enforcement.
“I know he didn’t give permission for a search,” she added. “And the only way they could have found them was to lift up the seat.”
If the weapons were found as a result of an illegal search whether or not the were ‘loaded’ would be rendered irrelevant.
This is not the first time the local police department was accused of being over zealous in enforcing the law. Under recently retired Chief Ron Supp those accusation bubble over into the press following the handcuffing of Wendover ambulance owner Lauara Snyder while she was on an emergency call to a Wendover, Utah motel in 2010.
While detained she was never formally arrested and charges were later dropped.
That same year the department was also taken to task for setting up a jay walking sting, ticketing tourists for $200 for not crossing the street in designated cross walks.
The uproar surrounding Snyder’s detainment did cause Supp to publicly complain to the city council that he and his department was being treated unfairly in the media.
“We are not thugs!” he told the council.
Supp departed last November and a search is currently on for his replacement. A new Chief of Police could be name by next month.
we live in a Police State
You sure like to bag on the couples, have you ever thought about printing the positive things they do, Instead of just feeding your personal vendetta against the police department. Maybe just maybe someday you will need their assistance, and you know what they will be there, even though you throw them under the bus at any given moment.
You go nevadaman! I agree 100%!
I can’t disagree with Ralphy and Nevadaman more.
“Maybe just maybe someday you will need their assistance,…”
end quote. by Nevadaman.
Simply because you “may” need a police officer someday should have no bearing on allowing the police to break the law they swear an oath to uphold!
That argument is atrocious.
The police should not only be upholding the law to a higher standard they should also be held to a higher penalty for breaking the law.
These incidences are disgusting tactics and actions by nothing more than law breakers with a badge!
We pay the police to uphold the law. We do not pay them to break the law!
The inmates are running the assylum.
Of Course Martin you get the sequence of events from the Advocate. Did you talk to any police officers about the incidents? Didn’t think so. The advantage of being the editor of this paper is he is like an artist, he can paint any picture he chooses. You just always read it as fact and truth. Instead of believing everything you read, maybe, just maybe ask yourself, “I wonder if there is another side to the story?”
publisher’s note
After reading this comment by nevadaman: “What you can’t handle my comments because they don’t fit your narrative, kind of funny Howard that you like to throw freedom of the press around but yet you stymie opposing views.”
We tried to send nevadaman a warning that any more ad hominem attacks would result in his or her banning from comments.
However nevadaman’s e-mail address proved to be fake.
Thus we will use this forum to warn him or her and address the comment.
We own this site as we own our newspaper we welcome criticism but we will not tolerate personal attacks against ourselves especially from people hiding behind anonymity.
We find both the reasoning and the character of such people contemptible.
This is Nevadaman
OK I will use my email address, but I am not anymore anonymous than anyone else that posts on here.
I do find it funny though that you welcome criticism but not personal attacks against your stories. I will agree to that since it is your site. But let me ask you a question, Do you fairly report both sides of a story? Over the years of reading your paper I always notice that you never present both sides of the coin. You pick one side and a very biased against the opposing side.
It also seems that you can dish it out but you can’t take it. You always levy personal attacks against anybody who doesn’t agree with you.
Case in point, when Donnie Anderson was mayor you never said one bad word against the man, although he had a lot of shortcomings. Why? Because he agreed with you. Anyone one else that disagreed with you was fair game? City Council members, the current mayor, the police department, the list goes on. I would just like to one day read an article one day that isn’t biased but gives the reader both sides of the story. You might find that more people will read your paper.
You don’t have to post this, just commenting back.
When we lecture budding reporters we start off with the line- there is no such thing as an unbiased news story. Every reporter brings a life time of biases to every story, We make every attempt to be fair but we are human. Your personal attack was against ourself not the story. We gave a family a platform to call the police department into account fulfilling our mission of giving a voice to the powerless not the powerful. The powers that be do not need defending they can fire, boycott, arrest, ordinance or fee you into oblivion. Your only recourse is to ask us for help.
As a mayor Donnie Anderson did his best to keep spending down and to reduce regulation that has strangled West Wendover for a decade. We agreed with those aims as we did when the council nixed the bone headed natural gas pipeline/propane buyout. If you are referring to Mayor Anderson’s alleged personal shortcomings we do not cover who goes out to where, who sleeps with whom, or who is married to whom. Not our business and frankly we find such gossip boring. If however a public official does a stupid thing or makes a stupid argument we are more than happy to extend to her or him every opportunity to shove their own foot down their own throat.
What we find the most loathsome even beyond stupid, is intellectual cowardice, such as not owning up to a insult by hiding behind a fictitious name or identity.
The reason I choose not to post my name is I don’t want it published on the front page of your paper, like you have done to others(Brian Boatman for example). I am just trying to engage in a discussion. If you want to make people prove their identity then that is your right, but than no one is going to post. Everyone on here is anonymous, except you. So I take it you are chastising them for being anonymous also?
I will say in the future I will not personally attack you or your paper. I will comment on the merits of the story.
I will take exception when it comes to Mayor Anderson. I never said anything about printing about his personal life, because I agree that is nobody’s business.
However I recall when you ripped into the Peppermill employees on the council because they didn’t declare they worked for the casinos when voting against the Rusty Palms hotel bid. They were unethical in your view.
Mayor Anderson also partook in unethical behavior. The biggest is his relationship with the Nugget and Southern Exposure. Most people are aware that he would always get his entries comped and all his drinks comped, and not just him the entire party that was with him. The only time money exchanged hands was when they tipped the server. How do I know because I was a party to them on a couple of occasions. The when he left, guess what everyone else had to start paying. So why didn’t you ever go after him, the Nugget, or the Southern for unethical behavior such as that?
PS I did get your email.
A politician getting a free drink is neither a illegal, immoral or unethical according to law if there is no quid pro quo agreement. A councilman who votes on an issue without declaring that his employer or close family member works for a company that would benefit from the vote is a violation of the law and thus news worthy. The Rusty Palms fiasco was even more news worthy because according to the builder he was told by at least one and perhaps two Peppermill councilmen that he would agree to his offer to pay the room taxes and build his hotel within a year before the vote but then after heavy pressure from their direct supervisors reversed themselves. That the project went bankrupt after the fact made the story not only news worthy but tragic as well.
Well when I read the following, I would beg to differ:
NRS 281A.400 General requirements; exceptions. A code of ethical standards is hereby established to govern the conduct of public officers and employees:
1. A public officer or employee shall not seek or accept any gift, service, favor, employment, engagement, emolument or economic opportunity which would tend improperly to influence a reasonable person in the public officer’s or employee’s position to depart from the faithful and impartial discharge of the public officer’s or employee’s public duties.
I agree getting one free drink is not a problem, but accepting drinks to the tune he did is unethical. The one night I went out, he had a party of 10 people. Not one of us had to pay for a drink, we just tipped. There were 6 times he got shots around for all 10 of us. Well let’s be conservative and say each drink was $5. That’s a about $300 in liquor alone, a remember that is a conservative estimate. He was allowed to do this numerous times. Then he fought hard to get people to allow the Southern Exposure to remain at it’s current location.
So I am no legal scholar as I doubt you are, but according to the statute it says no public official shall accept a gift or service for free, which he did. Then to also stump for the Southern Exposure, the same people who helped finance both of his campaigns, you can’t say that wouldn’t influence a reasonable persons judgment, it would me.
If this same behavior was exhibited by Current Mayor Emily Carter, can you honestly say that you wouldn’t go after for it?