Frontier pickets will be charged

Steve Sebelius

Friday, Jan. 30, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

First published April 30, 1993

Metro Police will ask the district attorney's office next week to file charges against five Culinary Union members captured on videotape beating two California tourists at the Frontier Hotel.

Meanwhile, a stepped-up police presence at the picket line in front of the Frontier netted three arrests Thursday.

Metro Lt. Joe Greenwood said the Culinary Union submitted a list of names of strikers who were picketing Sunday night when tourists Sean and Gail White of Moorpark, Calif., were attacked. Those names match union members who police believe assaulted the Whites.

"It's proceeding pretty well," Greenwood said of the police investigation. He said he plans to meet with Chief Deputy District Attorney Bill Coot on Monday to discuss the charges, which could include felony battery with a deadly weapon for a man who struck Sean White on the side of the head with a beer mug.

"We believe that all five of these people are currently employed at other Strip hotels," Greenwood said.

In a separate incident, a picket, William Crosby, 37, of Las Vegas, was arrested Thursday on a charge of misdemeanor breach of the peace after he allegedly used a bullhorn to yell at a man with two children coming out of the hotel, police said.

Two other men were arrested Thursday after they allegedly menaced strikers with a sledgehammer. Police said words were exchanged between the men, who were in a passing truck, and strikers. The men stopped, got out and began walking over with the sledgehammer, but then dropped it and were arrested, police and union officials said.

Police arrested Arnold Johnson on a charge of drunken driving and Dale Scott on charges of fighting and having an open container of alcohol in a car.

Meanwhile, Sheriff John Moran and the president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce have engaged in their own tussle in connection with the tourist beating.

In a letter to Moran, chamber President Denny Weddle says Metro Police have not acted to stop repeated harassment of tourists by striking workers, and that the negative press is damaging the city's tourist industry, which he called the group's most important interest.

Moran responded in a statement that his department does act when laws are broken but also must protect the strikers' right to picket in front of the Strip hotel, where they have been protesting since Sept. 21, 1991.

Weddle said in his letter that at a Dec. 9, 1992, meeting with Moran, chamber officials showed him another videotape of picketline harassment, but "following that meeting, relatively nothing has been done."

"The negative media attention Las Vegas is receiving has now escalated to a national level," the letter states, adding that recent comments by Moran have pleased chamber members. "We are, however, somewhat disappointed that this behavior wasn't curtailed in December."

Moran attacked Weddle's letter, arguing that his department has a responsibility to both sides.

"I would think that Mr. Weddle should approach this matter in a more constructive manner by offering comfort to the victims and trying to calm, rather than inflame, the situation," Moran states.

"In his statement, Mr. Weddle fails to point out that he and his fellow chamber members were advised by District Attorney Rex Bell exactly what the police department could and could not do with regard to the strike," Moran states. "Though Mr. Weddle is concerned with a segment of the business community, the Metropolitan Police and the district attorney must serve the interests of the entire community, its citizens and its visitors."

Moran concludes: "This entire incident places our community in a bad light and I believe we would all be better served if the president of the Chamber of Commerce would act in a more statesmanlike manner than pointing fingers and engaging in rhetoric."

The five unions striking [he Frontier had scheduled a news conference for today to join a call by Gov. Bob Miller for an independent fact-finder to investigate the 20-month strike, and to offer to pay half the cost for the investigator.

Miller also has renewed his call for binding arbitration between the hotel and the unions, a move the unions said they support. Frontier officials have not returned phone calls this week.