Press release from Mission Health:
Local journalist Chad Nesbitt is currently a patient at Mission Hospital having received a traumatic brain injury while he was covering the protests in Asheville last evening. Mr. Nesbitt is in serious but stable condition and will be closely monitored in the coming days. His wife, Nancy, asks that the family not be contacted by media during this difficult time and will return calls and messages at a later date. Mrs. Nesbitt and their daughter Savannah would like to thank everyone for their outpouring of support and prayers. Mission Hospital spokesperson Nancy Lindell is making this statement on her behalf.
Mr. Nesbitt is not a journalist. He is a wannabe social media personality. A second rate Alex Jones.
Jason Williams, why don’t you show some respect? The man was critically injured by the RIOTERS in Asheville, for no reason. He did not touch them or approach them, and yes he was reporting the event that was happening in downtown Asheville for Skyline News. Yes, he is a reporter and a well respected citizen of the community. It sounds like you are jealous, Jason. If you can’t say something nice during this difficult time, keep your mouth SHUT !!!
Chad was injured by his own “bodyguard” who started a shoving match with protestors who simply didn’t want a camera shoved in their faces by a sneering, taunting provocateur. Have you watched the videos? He left APD and waded straight into a river of angry people and picked a fight with them. I hope Chad recovers, but he himself is responsible for what happened.
As for “well respected”, I’ve known Chad for almost 20 years, and I can tell you that the part of the community that respects him is extremely narrow.
Chad – best wishes, buddy. Get well soon.
Agreed. Chad is a provocateur. He’s the one who drives around the street-sweeper truck with the boathorn on it to terrorize people. I’m sorry he got injured, but he’s well known in this town as someone who stirs up trouble.
https://mountainx.com/opinion/letters/110211occupy-asheville-faces-bullies/
Yep, indeed. Sorry not sorry. When you go out looking for trouble, it will usually find you.
Oh my, tots and pears you arrogant, self-serving, pseudo “journalist”. Where did he major in Journalism? What’s his degree? I don’t give two toots about his TBI, he was asking for it. Please stop running stories about morons with no souls, they do not deserve the attention or the press.
I’ve watched all the videos of the incident that we have as of the time of this comment. He was literally just standing there by Pack’s filming as the parade of loud but peaceful people was going by him. Up to this point, I am not aware of any property damage or physical violence, and everything seemed to be going as planned. Neither side was engaged with the other.
But a sizeable group split off from the marchers and surrounded him so as to prevent him from getting any footage of the group walking by. He was on public land, simply standing there and filming as they were going by at THEIR demonstration. But apparently, the fear of being doxxed is just too great amongst these leftist: covering up your head is not enough, you must bully people into not filming you as well. It’s a common tactic that can be seen during these BLM gatherings all across the country. In my view, it is nothing but cowardice.
This is the first video that I know of that Chad has gone to shoot while with bodyguards. With cruel irony, it was his own bodyguard getting shoved into him that caused him to get hurt. But I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination that without a bodyguard, the attacker may have just attached Chad directly. For those of you who don’t know what happened- the weight of a fully grown adult man came down on him and he hit his head on a parking meter; in one of the videos, you can hear his head hit the metal from a long distance away; he was knocked unconscious and bleeding out of his eyes, ears, and mouth; he has a spinal fluid leak. This could have easily resulted in death. As someone who has received even a minor concussion, I can say that it no laughing matter.
This act of violence stained what was, until that point, one of Asheville’s more respectful and well-behaved protests (which still doesn’t say much). It is acts like this that give anyone participating in these gatherings a bad name. Rather than bring about credibility to your cause, all you’ve succeeded in doing is further alienating those who have remained uninvolved, and what’s worse, creating even more of a sense of opposition to those like me who stand against all of this nonsense.
And so we have another classic example of the so-called “tolerant left” using bullying and physical force to silence those who hold differing ideologies. These types of acts are only enabled only by a sense of collectivism- none of these weaklings would dare get in a one-on-one fair fight. It only reenforces the view of conservatives that the left only wins arguments by censoring their opposition. It’s telling when someone is so triggered that they can’t even stand the new presence of someone they don’t like in their proximity and must resort to physical intimidation. Hey, if your ideas are dumb, you’ve always got fists, right?
On a final note, I would bet that none of these folks have ever actually taken the time to scroll through a year’s worth of Chad’s Skyline News posts. If they had, they wouldn’t have so much vitriol stored up, because -NEWSFLASH- he’s actually not a racist, or a Nazi, or whatever other unoriginal insult these radicals have labeled him as. His posts are usually full of useful information to locals, topics that our local leftist news media (like the Mountain X) won’t touch, and information about local government. In fact, it’s outlets like the Mountain X that have fostered this sort of abuse taken out on Chad; one of this paper’s former staff, David Forbes, is involved with the people who Chad is having a restraining order taken out against. It’s only recently that he’s ever engaged in any sort of back-and-forth with his opponents, and that’s because those people (the Asheville antifa) had personally targeted him. So, here are my two challenges to you. (1) Read a year of his Skyline posts and make up your mind for yourself if he’s really as bad as your radicalized friends have told you- don’t just accept it when someone tells you that someone else is a “Nazi,” clear your head and see for yourself. (2) Ask yourself, regardless of your opinion of this man, if he deserved to be seriously harassed and injured simply for standing on the sidewalk and filming with his phone. He’s a human being just like everyone else- a loving, caring, person with a family, friends, and work, and we’d all be worse of without him.
David Forbes has not worked for Mountain Xpress for over six years. Forbes doesn’t represent the publication or its approach to community journalism.
Dude, when you muck around with pigs, you gonna get muddy. PS…Skyline News is not actually a legitimate news channel, but thanks for playing!