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By Caren Benjamin
Review-Journal
The man who brought Las Vegas TootleVision faced a jury Monday on charges he assaulted a security guard and resisted arrest.
Harry Tootle, 46, was arrested in November 1995 outside Larry's Villa, a Bonanza Road tavern that features topless dancers. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon and resisting a police officer. He has pleaded innocent to the charges.
Tootle, a self-described militia member, used his now-defunct UHF station to broadcast messages warning Constitution-abiding citizens of federal government excesses.
In hopes of a larger audience, Tootle has also launched failed bids for the U.S. Senate, Clark County Sheriff and chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Campaign slogans included "Use Your Noodle, Vote for Tootle."
On the night in question, Tootle was planning a meeting with an unnamed tipster who promised information for use on TootleVision about the Oklahoma City bombing, defense attorney Lamond Mills told jurors.
The tipster and Tootle were talking when "suddenly out of Larry's Villa came this security guard wearing battle fatigues," Mills said.
Contrary to the prosecutor's assertions, the man was armed. Tootle was scared. He ran off to find his informant and surrendered to police because he believed they were there to protect him, Mills told jurors in District Judge Donald Mosley's courtroom.
Deputy District Attorney Kim Maxson gave jurors a different account, in which an unarmed security officer at the bar called police after Tootle pulled out a concealed weapon and threatened him.
Tootle, who witnesses said appeared to be intoxicated, then ran toward an apartment complex and hid behind a trash bin until police bearing weapons forced him out, Maxson said. Throughout the chase he was "making Rambo movements -- ducking down, hiding in the shadows with a weapon in his hand."
Assault with a deadly weapon calls for a sentence of one to six years in prison.
Tootle now lives in Idaho.
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