It's devastating, you know. It's a little boy.
A young boy hit by a truck and killed near a Las Vegas school.
It's a tragedy that hits too close to home for local parents.
This is News 3 Nightside with Jim Snyder and Nina Ravitich.
Good evening. He was on his way to pick up his younger brother from school. It seemed like a typical day.
Instead, it turned out to be the last day of his life. The boy died in a crosswalk after a truck ran over him.
The accident happened in the intersection of Eastern and Searles.
News 3's Rebecca Klein joins us live from there tonight.
Rebecca, we're starting to find out a little bit more about this little boy.
We are, Jim. The boy's life who came to a sudden end just outside this crosswalk, you can see the markings over there,
was 12-year-old Stephen Althaus.
Now, this was not a boy just taking a chance and venturing across the street.
This was a boy who waited until he had the signal to go ahead.
Horrible, tragic accident.
Back wheels just rolled over him.
The chills of your body, you know, if you're having kids, it's like I know they're hurting and crying or it's ooh.
Take one look at the young boy's crumpled musical instrument in the middle of the street and you know something terrible happened.
The truck didn't see him and kept going, you know. We screamed and told him to stop, stop.
When I got off the bus, I seen his feet sticking out from under the truck and it's like, it's real sad.
When he did come to the stop, the tire in the back rolled over his neck. The boy was gone.
Police say Stephen Althaus started to cross Eastern when the walk sign lit up.
That's when officers say driver James Anderson made a right turn onto the crosswalk, his back tires running over the boy.
The people that we drive, we have to be more careful with kids, especially with kids.
I worry about it every day, every day.
Witnesses say Stephen routinely picked up his younger brother from a nearby elementary school to walk him home,
a kind of protection parents say kids need at this intersection. Only they want the kind in uniform.
All we ask is they put a crossing card when the kids are in school.
That is something parents tell me they may just plan to petition for.
As for the driver James Anderson, he works for Silver Dollar Recycling.
A spokesman there tells us he passed a breathalyzer test just after the accident
and he charges are pending until we have the investigation completed.
Reporting live from Seals in Eastern, I'm Rebecca Klein. Back to you.
Rebecca, thank you. This is the third time this year we have seen a person get hit and killed in Metro's jurisdiction.
Police tell us most of the time the person walking is the one at fault.
But again, in this case, the boy waited for the light in the crosswalk and he crossed at the right time.
A huge pileup in Virginia killed at least one person today.
More than a hundred cars smashed into each other on Interstate 95 in Stafford County.
Dozens of people were injured, many of them seriously.
Victims were transported to a nearby elementary school which was turned basically into a triage center.
A combination of bad winter weather and people driving too fast caused that scene.
Storm is also being blamed for this big pileup near Lexington, Virginia.
Close to 20 vehicles were involved in that wreck, including nearly a dozen big rigs.
Many of those semis spilled hazardous chemicals.
The interstate was shut down for several hours while crews cleaned up the mess.
Racing fans from across the country paused today to remember one of the greatest drivers in history, Dale Earnhardt.
While his closest friends said goodbye during a private memorial in North Carolina,
6,000 people packed inside this church today to pay tribute to the racing legend.
Friends and family urged the group to continue to celebrate Earnhardt's accomplishments and build the NASCAR circuit.
Many say Earnhardt left the way he sometimes raced, too fast.
It has been a busy year for Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald,
from heated disputes with the mayor to charges of ethics violations and now an apparent stalker.
As Ann Quenette Moon reports, the councilman isn't imagining things,
but what's more strange than being followed is who's following him.
General walked by and said, you better watch your back.
After receiving that warning and death threats, Michael McDonald was watching his back,
but what he saw in his rearview mirror about a month ago really caught his attention.
Then I started to notice that vehicles were following me.
Three different vehicles, and they followed him everywhere, stalking him at a restaurant in the Regent.
At Piero's, they sat across from him at dinner. They even followed him for 20 miles to his parents' house.
I started getting along. You know, my parents were very fearful. They didn't know what was going on.
I didn't know what was going on. It got to the point where my mother wouldn't even leave the house.
And McDonald says they didn't even try to be discreet, making it quite obvious he was being followed.
So finally, he confronted them.
So I took a spotlight and a video camera, walked up to him, and then when I turned it on,
he covered himself with a black jacket or black blanket or something,
and all I did was I videotaped the license plate to show that that was the same car that was tailing me.
After weeks of writing down license plate numbers and even videotaping the people who were following him,
Michael McDonald brought all of his information here to the police department.
Today, they got back to him. They had found out exactly who was following him.
Turns out it wasn't a stalker at all. They were undercover police officers.
Which is fine. At least we know it's a legitimate agency.
But McDonald doesn't know which agency is following him and why.
Anquinnat Moon, News 3.
Now McDonald adds he's glad to know that it is the law and not a criminal that's following him around
and says whoever it is, they won't find anything wrong.
A coroner's inquest will begin tomorrow to see if county jail guards are criminally responsible
for the death of French national Philippe LeMend.
LeMend died after being restrained inside the Clark County Detention Center on January 4th.
By now you've seen this videotape of that incident.
Nine officers are now on paid administrative leave because of what happened here.
LeMend's cousin arrived in Las Vegas today to attend the inquest and he talked exclusively with News 3.
I've seen my cousin. I've seen his face. I've seen how he looks like, you know, after what they did to him.
And it's terrible.
The coroner's inquest will begin at nine in the morning.
Details about the autopsy are expected to be released finally.
We'll be there and we'll bring you the latest developments tomorrow here on News 3.
Imagine getting shot at close range with a shotgun and living to tell about it.
That's exactly what happened to a Las Vegas limo driver.
He spoke to News 3 today about his experience in the Walgreens parking lot at Flamingo and Boulder Highway.
The passenger reportedly took a sawed-off shotgun out of a bag and pointed it at the driver.
As you can imagine, the limo driver had no idea how to react.
He cocked the gun. So at that instant, I really didn't know what that meant.
You know, I don't know if he was going to take me for a ride.
You know, blow my head off, try to jack me for the money that I had.
You know, I really had no clue.
The driver jumped out of the slow-moving limo and started to run, and that's when he felt a shot in his back.
He was taken to UMC where he was treated and released about four hours later.
Metro is now looking for a young Hispanic man with numerous tattoos,
including a 666 tattoo above one of his eyebrows.
The crew waiting to demolish a group of abandoned homes here in town will have to wait a little longer
so a group of stray cats can get a chance at another life.
Firefighters were out in the area of 9th Street and Bridger today tearing the roofs off,
but the actual homes won't come down until at least tomorrow afternoon.
The Humane Society is still trying to catch about 40 stray cats living under the homes.
Volunteers plan to try and catch more in the morning before crews begin clearing those buildings.
Your power bill could soon skyrocket.
The Public Utilities Commission will start hearing testimony tomorrow from state power companies.
They want to raise rates 17 percent.
That works out to about an extra 12 bucks a month for the average homeowner.
Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific both say the raise is needed to avoid an energy crisis.
If approved, the price hike would kick in March 1st.
Speaking of your home, homeowner's associations are supposed to protect the value of your investment.
Really a story everyone can relate to. The question is, are those associations really working?
These homeowners say they were being run out of their homes by an out...
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When did you first become aware that he was not fading?
When the nurse came in and said he's dead.
Revealing testimony tonight about the death of a Frenchman inside the county jail.
For the first time we hear from corrections officers about what really happened inside this cell.
This is News 3 Nightside with Jim Snyder and Nina Ravitich.
Good evening, everyone.
Philippe LeMend died January 4th after being restrained inside the Clark County Detention Center.
Now nearly two months later, a jury will determine if nine prison guards acted appropriately.
It's what's called a coroner's inquest.
News 3's Kim Capozo has been following this story from the beginning.
She joins us live from the Clark County Courthouse.
And Kim, through this inquest, it's been going on for quite some time now,
but we now know a lot more about what really happened.
We know more, but it was a tough day for family members.
They say it's hard enough watching the surveillance video,
but listening to corrections officers tell their story is unbearable.
It's a story that has no happy ending.
I heard the inmate or Mr. LeMend say that he could not breathe.
Would you describe the color of his face?
Dark purplish blue.
Is he alive?
He did not have a pulse.
It was only five minutes, but it wiped out a life.
And now these corrections officers are left to explain why they used force to restrain this inmate.
He was just moving around like ragdolls around the cell.
We just couldn't get him controlled.
We couldn't stop his movement, and we couldn't force him down to the ground.
This officer admits to punching Felipe LeMend several times in the face.
He says it's a common use of force method to distract combative inmates.
Let's go beat him up, you know? That's better.
That's the way we deal with people. We punch him in the face just to distract him.
That's what I've heard tonight.
LeMend's cousin, Felipe Moreau, is disgusted after a long day of testimony.
He says bottom line, his cousin needed help, but instead was beat up.
He wants the officers involved to pay a price.
My cousin is dead, okay? And I can't imagine, I mean, just imagining the way he died, it's awful.
After spending 12 hours here today, jurors are expected back tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock.
There are still five more witnesses that they have to hear from.
But a judge tells us we should have a verdict tomorrow.
Reporting live, I'm Kim Capozzo. Nina, back to you.
Kim, thank you. Speaking of verdicts, jurors can decide between three things.
Whether LeMend's death was justifiable, excusable, or criminal.
In another high-profile case, the defense did everything it could to try and stop the trip, but it didn't work.
Accused murderer Margaret Rudin was in Phoenix today, hearing the first testimony in her upcoming trial.
Rudin is accused of killing her millionaire husband, Ron.
The actual trial doesn't begin until Monday, but today those involved heard testimony from Ron Rudin's ex-wife,
who was too sick to make it to Las Vegas for the trial. That's why this happened in Phoenix.
Margaret Rudin's attorney tried to cancel that trip, but the judge wanted to get this testimony on the record now.
Jury selection for the case will start Monday morning, and the trial, we're told, could last up to two months.
For the fourth time this month, a Clark County School District employee is arrested for having sex with a student.
Tonight we have new information about 38-year-old James Gabrielli, a teacher arrested this morning in California.
News 3's Beth Fisher is following the story and joins us with an update. Beth?
Gabrielli plays in a local band called Purge, but this weekend the band was performing in Escondido, California.
Well, police say Gabrielli invited his student on the trip and that he might have gotten away with it,
except, according to police, security guards caught the two having sex in a parking lot.
It's a sordid script you'd expect to play out on the big screen.
Teachers should know better.
But this real-life story has this Western high school teacher in serious trouble,
after security guards at this California Holiday Inn claim they caught James Gabrielli having sex with his 16-year-old student in the parking lot.
It appears to us that the mother believed her daughter was on a school field trip to Escondido.
One of the school clubs had a conference here in Escondido.
You have a teenager and you have an adult. I mean, the adult knows better. The teenager is just out on a whim.
We caught up to students and parents outside this movie theater who can't believe this is the fourth arrest of this kind in a month.
What a bad reputation for the school districts, you know.
Mojave High School teacher Jeremy Green, Berkholder Middle School teacher Newell Levitt, and Las Vegas Academy theater manager Michael Vicious,
all arrested for sexual misconduct with a student.
Now, James Gabrielli allegedly caught in the act.
Morals.
Some teachers are out of control. Some students are out of control. Morals are not intact. That's a major problem.
A problem parents aren't taking lightly.
We try and stay involved with them, you know, with their school and their activities,
and we try and get to know all their teachers and know what's happening.
News 3 has learned James Gabrielli has a wife and a child.
We were unable to talk to his wife tonight, but we did talk to his band members.
They were supposed to be back here in Vegas to perform tomorrow night, but they have canceled that show.
Band members tell News 3 they had seen Gabrielli with the girl, but they had no idea she was 16.
They won't say whether they think Gabrielli indeed had sex with her, but the group has dropped him from the band.
Nina?
Beth, thanks for the update. The girl was put in protective custody until her mother could fly down to California to pick her up.
She is expected to return to Las Vegas tonight.
Gabrielli will face felony charges in California for having sex with a minor.
He may also face charges here in Nevada.
Students and parents from J.D. Smith Elementary School are mourning the loss of one of their own,
a little boy run over and killed yesterday while he was walking home from school.
Police say 12-year-old Stephen Allshouse stepped into the crosswalk at Eastern and Searles and was run over by a truck making a right turn.
Today, after news of the accident spread at the school, several parents went to the school to pick up their kids.
It was a very emotional day for Stephen's classmates.
Mr. Carr, she was telling us how he died and did he die, and then I still didn't believe it, and then I saw everybody crying.
So I said, is it really true? And then I was like, yeah. And then it hurt me inside too.
Police say the boy followed all the traffic rules when he was hit.
So far, no charges against the truck driver, but the investigation is continuing.
Does a zero-tolerance policy on guns in schools go too far?
That's what One Valley family is wondering tonight as school leaders decide whether to expel an eighth-grade student.
13-year-old Heidi Bortel is in the middle of expulsion hearings after being caught with a toy gun last night at a KO Knudsen basketball game.
Under the zero-tolerance rules, anything that looks like a gun could be grounds for expulsion,
but Heidi's family says it's obvious this toy gun was a toy.
And I'm going, but you're going to do this because of a plastic, orange plastic gun?
I don't know. I'm hoping somebody will use some sort of intelligence, some sort of restraint, some sort of discretion about other consequences.
Some kids do think it's pretty cool to bring guns, real guns, to school.
And to tell you the truth, I am scared of them.
You know, I would never bring a real gun or anything towards real to hurt anybody.
Those expulsion hearings will continue Monday morning.
We did speak with school administrators earlier today, but they couldn't comment while that case is ongoing.
They followed him everywhere, watching his every move.
But just who was following Councilman Michael McDonald, and why?
Last night, we told you how McDonald was under surveillance by an undisclosed law enforcement agency.
Tonight, see for yourself how those undercover officers operated.
As Anquinet Moon shows you now, McDonald videotaped them in action.
A single car parked behind his house for hours.
You see there's nothing around there.
The same set of headlights he's seen every day trail him down a deserted street.
They make it very obvious that they were following me.
Even at his girlfriend's apartment in a gated community.
So they started pacing back and forth.
They watch and wait, even slowing down so Councilman Michael McDonald can get a better view
and a better video of the men watching his every move.
You can see, he makes no bones about it, but he knows that I'm there.
And sometimes he would go places and they'd already be there waiting for him.
This is in front of my parents' house.
And this is when McDonald decided it was time for the watched to become the watcher.
He walked up to the car, flipped on a flashlight,
and that's when this undercover officer took his job quite literally.
The driver has covered himself with a blanket or jacket.
But the driver makes it even harder to hide when he hits the panic button by mistake.
When the horn sounds, the light starts flashing.
So at this point, all my old neighbors from my neighborhood start coming out.
You can see binoculars, a camera, and clothes in the car.
As the driver cowers behind the wheel, McDonald videotapes it all, then walks away.
And he says this was the last time he was tailed.
Anquinnat Moon, News 3.
McDonald says it's hard for him to believe professional officers would follow him in such an obvious way.
Remember, he was an officer on Metro's force before he was elected to the city council.
In fact, his lawyer doesn't think that they were officers of the law at all.
Metro says it wasn't them. They won't say who it was. The FBI won't comment.
U.S. 95 is a mess tonight after a garbage truck spilled its load all over the highway.
Cars are backed up as crews clean up the sludge.
U.S. 95 between Tropicana and Boulder Highway has been shut down for hours, forcing motorists through a detour.
The Nevada Highway Patrol expects to reopen the road shortly before midnight.
A seat belt could be to blame for the death of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt.
Investigators now say Earnhardt's lap belt failed during the collision in Sunday's Daytona 500.
One doctor says if the belt would have stayed together, the driver would have had a much better chance of surviving.
Earnhardt's crew chief says they've never had a problem with lap belts before.
Meantime, Earnhardt's wife is addressing the public for the first time through an ad in the USA Today newspaper.
Teresa Earnhardt wants to thank racing fans for their support.
The next NASCAR race is this weekend in North Carolina before the circuit comes here to Las Vegas.
A special tribute is planned at both speedways for Dale Earnhardt.
Could your next door neighbor be a convicted sex offender? If he or she is, you might never know it.
The Crime Tracker 3 team found some serious problems with the state's sex offender notification system.
What's being done to make sure your family is safe?
Have any changes been made since we first exposed the problems?
Don't miss my Crime Tracker 3 follow-up next.
I'm Rick Strauss and we keep hearing rumors about Rick Pitino coming to coach at UNLV.
Now we hear more rumors about how long he'll be here. I'll have that later in sports.
Plus in weather. Wait a minute, I don't know anything about weather.
Actually, I do know a little bit about weather. We dodged the bullet this afternoon.
But we do have another system that's cranking up and it will affect our weather this weekend and Secret City.
Here's the clue. The National Railroad Museum and Hall of Fame is located in this city.
I'll have the answer to that in your forecast. That's next on News 3, where news comes first.
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You're watching Southern Nevada's No. 1 Choice for News.
This is News 3 Nightside.
If a sex offender moved in next door to you, you'd find out about it, right?
Probably not here in Nevada.
Last year, the Crime Checker 3 team found what many call serious problems with the state sex offender notification laws.
We uncovered a paperwork backlog that allowed hundreds of sex offenders to live in our neighborhoods with no chance that anyone would be notified.
Now, a year later, we followed up to see if some of those problems have been fixed.
Unfortunately, the court sees these cases over and over again.
This is probably about as severe as I've ever seen.
It's sentencing day for Russell Cohen.
He's pled guilty to having sex with dozens of teenage boys, but this isn't his first offense.
Cohen lived in this Las Vegas neighborhood for five years.
No one here knew he'd been convicted of two previous sex offenses until after he was arrested for his new crimes, and we told neighbors last year.
I think they need to get up off their butts and pay attention to what's going on to avoid things like this from happening.
If you didn't come over here now, we never would have known anything about it.
No one knew because the Crime Checker 3 team found a state paperwork backlog kept Cohen's criminal history a secret.
Although Cohen did register as a sex offender, he was one of at least 700 offenders whose files had piled up at the State Division of Parole and Probation.
The offenders were all waiting to be evaluated by the state on their risk of offending again.
And until that happened, no one had a chance to be notified about their past crimes.
Now, a year later, things appear to have changed.
Grace George is with the state's criminal records repository in Carson City.
She says a new combined system has cut the sex offender backlog in half and says when one more employee is hired, that backlog should be eliminated.
It's a big concern. I mean, community notification is a very important part of this process, letting the public know if there's people around them that could cause them some concern.
So yeah, we do assign a high priority to that.
Despite the improvement, some of Russell Cohen's victims and their families say some of the same problems still exist.
Backlog or not, right now in the state of Nevada, there are only 16 offenders who qualify as the worst of the worst.
And that's the only time a neighborhood like this would get notified that an offender was living here.
But in many states, everyone with Internet access is told about sex offenders because on websites like this, you can search through sex offenders' names, addresses, and pictures.
Now Nevada may be one step closer to letting you do the same.
Grace George says as soon as a state computer database of sex offenders is completed, the next step will be to put that information online.
Lawmakers have already approved Internet access, but right now you'd still have to know some information about the offender before you'd get that access.
However, Senate Judiciary Chairman Mark James says that could change.
If we find that it's not effective or the utility isn't there for people trying to use this for proper means, then maybe we will revise it in that way.
Meantime, sex offender Russell Cohen will likely sit in a Nevada prison for the rest of his life,
as his victims hope for any change that would help prevent another criminal like him from striking again.
One reason state workers say it's so tough to keep the sex offender backlog in check is because they say more than 100 sex offenders are added to it each month.
And every one of those must be evaluated before anyone would be notified.
Here's Rachel now with Secret City on a Friday night.
That's right.
We've got an almanac out.
That's right.
We've got the map out.
And here's the clue.
There are a lot of hornets in this city.
A lot of hornets buzzing around.
Charlotte.
Yay!
I see a new sooner or later I'd give you a good clue.
Thank you.
A lot of hornets buzzing around the city.
Oh, love that little box turn graphic we just did.
All right.
We've got the Rio camera checking out.
Lovely lady Las Vegas.
That looks like New York, New York to me.
And it's cool outside.
The temperature is 48 degrees.
Oh, the Monte Carlo.
Hello.
48 degrees humidity.
25 percent the wind of the south at eight miles per hour.
The barometer, 29.75 inches of mercury and rising.
48 degrees.
Yeah, a little cool.
Here's the situation.
We've got high pressure building in over the Silver State very briefly tonight into tomorrow.
And then another system, a storm system is going to pick up some steam.
An organization from the Pacific Northwest dived to the southeast and hit us on Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, which means we have a chance of rain on all those days.
Not very fun, but the truth.
All right.
Thirty-one degrees right now in Reno.
Twenty-seven in Tonopah.
Forty-nine degrees in San Francisco.
And temperatures a little bit closer to home coming up like so.
Twenty-three degrees right now up on the mountaintop.
Forty-seven in Spring Valley.
Fifty degrees for my friends in Laughlin and elsewhere around the nation.
A low pressure system ejecting out of Colorado, lifting on off into the central portion of
the U.S.
Snowfall and rain, freezing rain as well.
If you're headed that way, you might want to call ahead and see whether or not your plane
is going to be on time, delayed or even canceled.
Fifty-eight our high today.
Your sun will rise tomorrow at 618 a.m.
We're going to fall back to about 44 degrees in the next couple of hours.
Thirty-nine degrees by sunrise.
Fifty-three by mid-morning.
Tomorrow's high, 59.
You saw the normal high for this time of year, 65, so obviously not quite making it.
Increasing clouds.
A little bit breezy in the afternoon.
Out at the lake, you'll fall back to 40 and top out at 66.
Up on the mountaintop, you're going to fall back to 12.
You're at about 23 right now.
Hmm, that might be pushing it.
Thirty-nine degrees will be your high tomorrow over the next several days.
Here's what it looks like as I mentioned, unfortunately.
Chances of showers Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and the upper 50s, not great.
Have a little light jacket.
Keep an umbrella handy.
And you'll get through it just fine.
Okay, good advice.
That's my advice.
Thanks, Rachel.
Yep.
Just ahead on Nightside, going the extra mile to save some feral cats.
We'll have an update on the roundup designed to keep those cats out of harm's way next,
here on News 3 Nightside.
Half off.
The Lamps Plus, crazy, half-price days in sale, hundreds of items at 10 to 50 percent off.
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You ever seen a guy this relaxed around here?
I didn't think so.
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Volunteers with the Humane Society rescued more stray cats
near a demolition project today.
The abandoned homes where the cats had been living were demolished this afternoon,
as you can see here.
Since Tuesday, volunteers have been trapping the feral cats.
There were about 40 animals living in the colony.
The cats will all be spayed and neutered.
Some may be adopted.
Others, they may have to just re-release.
Either way, neighbors in the area are happy to see the cats are being rescued.
Up next in sports, pressing new developments surrounding the Runnin' Rebels,
soon to be Patino's team.
Rick Strasser has the latest.
Plus, it's the grand finale of Operation Basketball, the state finals.
Coming up next in sports, here on News 3, where news comes first.
Later on an all-new Tonight Show, Kathy Lee Gifford finally gets back at Jay.
It should be spanged.
You know, it's very good the way you do that.
Plus, Dark Angels Jessica Alba and which classic TV star will be crowned champion
in the final round of Hollywood Survivor?
Could it be more exciting?
Then on Conan Ted Danson and SNL's Chris Catan, all new tonight.
December 1994, Las Vegas millionaire Ron Rudin reported missing.
April 1997, wife Margaret indicted for murder, but she's nowhere to be found.
Two years later, Margaret Rudin's arrested for killing her husband.
Now, the murder mystery begins to unravel in court.
News 3 reporter Kim Capozzo digs deeper into the secret life of Ron Rudin
and the public life of Margaret.
Learn the whole story behind this millionaire murder mystery.
Monday on News 3 at 5.
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Welcome back. At the beginning of the Operation Basketball season,
Bishop Gorman was supposed to win the state crown.
At the end of the Operation Basketball season, it was supposed to win the state crown.
Tonight, the Gales had the chance to repeat, taking on Western up in Reno.
The top-ranked Gales won all three of the previous meetings this season.
Western looking to take down the Giants first half.
Brandon Weaver's pass, picked by C.J. Watson, goes in for two of his game-high 17.
Gorman by 14 at the break.
Second half, Warriors go on a big run.
Patrick Sennette, the steal on one end, jam on the other.
Then Sennette out to Weaver for three.
Bottom tied at 36.
Move to the fourth quarter.
Sennette driving inside, finds Tim Day for the easy lay-in.
Warriors suddenly up by seven.
Gale storm back. Justin Burns, the steal.
He would take it the distance, go in for the jam.
Gales down, just five inside of a minute to play.
Burns, he will take it inside.
Misses the finger roll, but gets the O-board and the put-back.
Gorman back up one.
Final 20 seconds. Sennette doing it again.
Drives to the baseline, puts up the jumper that goes down.
Western by one.
Six seconds left.
Warriors by three.
Last chance for Gorman.
Denard Taylor, he'll get the chance for the three,
but it goes off rim, and no chance for another shot.
It's the upset of the year.
Western takes down Gorman 64-61.
The Warriors getting it done in the one that mattered the most.
The coaches told me to go to the basket.
I was wide open for the jump shot, so I just took the jump shot.
We pressure to beat them all season.
That's the only thing we was worried about.
And we did it.
We did it as breakers.
All that blood, sweat and tears, all that, it pays off.
In the past few days,
the rumor mill has been spinning a little faster about Rick Patino coming to Las Vegas.
Well, now we know that he could have an official offer,
and it could be voted on by the Board of Regents by Thursday.
In a report two days ago from the Hunter News and Sports Group,
Patino's salary with all the incentives and deals came out to about $1.7 million per season.
But today, the organization tells News 3 that it will be a minimum of a five-year deal,
which is a big collegiate contract.
One university region says the salary could be even higher with new clauses.
I think it's very important for all future contracts for coaches
to have the academic clause in there, because we're not here just to win.
We're here for students to graduate.
And the current trend across the country is to include a clause that says
if the students do well, student athletes do well academically,
the coach will also get bonus.
The Board of Regents is scheduled to meet on Thursday.
A contract will need to be offered to Patino by Monday
for the vote of the contract to be on Thursday's docket.
Well, while the rumors continue to swirl about Patino,
Coach Good and the current Rebels embarked for their final road trip of the season
and final road trip for six Rebels seniors.
Because of the NCAA sanctions, there will be no postseason play for the team,
so when the Rebels play at San Diego State tomorrow night,
it will be the last time in the dark jerseys for six seniors.
With all the rumors and outside distractions, it's been a tough year,
a tough road this year.
Things were frustrating at a certain time, but I'm not going to look back now
and say my senior year has been disappointing.
It's frustrating.
I'd just rather look ahead of all the things I can do.
It's one of those things that I think over the long haul,
it makes you stronger and better as a person.
I just hate for the players to have to go through this.
As a coach, I don't know if anything could condition you
for the kind of year we have gone through,
but nevertheless I don't regret any of it,
and I'm just looking forward to these last three games with these guys.
We've got a lot of pride out there, and with Coach Good,
you don't know if that will be his final three games,
even if Patino comes or not.
He's class act, though, all along the way.
It has been the whole season, absolutely.
Thanks, Rick.
We'll be right back.
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It's almost March.
That means it's time for the Rattlesnake Roundup.
Yee-haw.
The world's biggest rattlesnake roundup kicked off this
afternoon in Sweetwater, Texas.
Snake handlers demonstrated their courage or stupidity
depending on how you looked at it.
As they handled the western diamondbacks,
they also showed how to milk the snake.
That's when you get the venom out of the fangs there.
Look at that.
Isn't that nice?
We'll leave you with that picture.
That should help you have sweet dreams.
We are out of here.
Enjoy your weekend on that note.
Good night.