As protests against Elon Musk proliferated at Tesla dealerships, law enforcement analysts quietly warned of a threat from “violent opportunists” — and from the cars themselves.

In California, intelligence analysts said opportunists might exploit peaceful gatherings “to mask criminal intentions, including vandalism, arson, or other disruptive acts.” In Nevada, analysts said that electric cars lit on fire posed a risk of toxic gases and self-sustaining “thermal runaway.”

Documents released Thursday by a transparency nonprofit show that law enforcement officials have trained a microscope on demonstrations against Musk in the past month.

Ryan Shapiro, co-founder of the group Property of the People, said the intelligence reports show law enforcement twisting itself into pretzels to avoid the obvious.

“Law enforcement has a messaging problem. They want to portray anti-Musk sentiment as terroristic, but they simultaneously know just how popular and mainstream anti-Musk sentiment actually is,” he said in an email.

All the documents include a nod toward free speech and free assembly rights, sometimes in the form of a “First Amendment Acknowledgement.” Shapiro dismissed that as nothing more than boilerplate.

“Generic First Amendment language is a common pretense in intelligence documents about surveilling dissent,” he said. “It’s akin to writing, ‘Nothing in this surveillance report about you should be understood as spying on you.’”

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Two of the reports obtained by his group were produced by state fusion or intelligence centers, which were created after the September, 11, 2001........

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