Rickards tells his side of arrest, contending authorities overreacted.....

Dear editor:

Well, after 20 years of "public meetings" on both public and private property, being arrested for trespassing was a first for me!

I was sitting quietly in the audience for 20 minutes when the police officer tapped me on the shoulder, and said "You are under arrest for trespassing and battery."

I asked, "Who in the world have I battered?"

He said Doug McConaughey, and off to jail in handcuffs I went. There is no charge of resisting arrest since of course I went peacefully. I later asked, "Please examine McConaughey for any signs of violence because I never laid a hand on him."

He informed me "McConaughey said you shoved him when he was blocking your entry to the meeting. Battery doesn't need bruising. It means you touched him without his permission."

I replied, "I have not shoved anybody since the fourth grade, and I still feel guilty about that! What law allows him to block me from a meeting they invited the public too? How can you trespass at a public meeting?"

The officer never asked me about the leafleting the nuclear company complained about, but the media coverage was accurate. I have passed out information at every meeting in 20 years. The leafleting law is clear. I cannot set up a table, nor leave pamphlets on chairs without their permission, and I never have.

McConaughey told me I couldn't hand out anything. I asked "what law stops me?" He kept stepping in my way so I slid by him with our bellies touching like on a crowded subway.

But there is no law that says I can't carry sheets of paper with me and share vital information with my neighbors at a public meeting, just like I am free to speak with them before the meeting. I always smile and ask "May I share this with you? These are the reasons I oppose this plant."

When I attended the Warren Buffet nuclear meeting in December over 400 citizens showed up. The speaker had started, when I was still quietly handing out the copies to the audience. The four police officers asked for a copy for themselves!

I attended Don Gillispie's public nuclear meeting in Mountain Home the week before, and passed out my handout peacefully. But I got to speak with my Elmore neighbors after the meeting, like the First Amendment guarantees Americans can do!

One man asked about safety concerns. Gillispie replied, "Meltdowns are near impossible, a one in a billion chance. Like a meteor hitting this building now, if you are worried about that!"

After the meeting I explained what the government's Nuclear Regulatory Commission says are the odds of a meltdown, (see www.MyIdahoEnergy.com). The NRC says the odds are "one in 17,000 under normal operations." At the modern Ohio nuclear power plant, in 2002, the Davis-Besse nuclear plant had unforeseen metal cracking they never anticipated and didn't know to look for. The nickel Alloy-600 became brittle after years in the reactor and got stress cracks. That created an acid leak that ate a football-size hole in the steel containment, leaving only 3/8ths of an inch left! When the nuclear engineer accidentally found it, he lied to the NRC to keep running for profit! Fortunately somebody eventually blew the whistle on him, and he is now in jail. The NRC ranked the risk of a meltdown at "1 in 1,000 within the year!"

That's why Gillispie is upset I attended his public misinformation meetings! I expected the police to laugh at the trespassing charge and ask about any alleged battery.

God bless our Constitution!

Dr. Peter Rickards DPM

Twin Falls