KPD Attempting to Destroy Seized Property

August 1, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 19 Comments
Filed under: Police, Update

This past Tuesday, Heika was arrested after using a megaphone to speak in front of the Keene District Court. It’s worth noting again, Heika was not warned that her behavior would lead to arrest or seizure of property; police just walked up and arrested her.

The police took the megaphone, which was no longer in Heika’s hands, as evidence to be held for her court date. Heika’s charges were fully dealt with on Wednesday morning in a plea deal, but she had not been given the megaphone back yet.

Now, Keene Police are asking for the court’s permission to destroy or sell the megaphone! It does not belong to Heika, nor does it belong to the police, of course. But they have filed a motion to “Destroy Contraband and/or Forfeit Property and Destroy or Sell Same”. Essentially attempting to permanently keep this piece of property, which is not illegal to own, out of the hands of it’s owner.

Click to read the KPD’s motion

It is my understanding that a “legal” resistance will be put against this in court. Stay tuned for updates.

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Many Arrested in Downtown Keene

July 19, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 19 Comments
Filed under: Civil Disobedience, Personal Freedom, Police

Do humans have a right to sit in public and drink a bottle of water?
A glass of lemonade?
A can of beer?
Some people think we should not have a right to drink the latter, but how are they different? Who is more hurt because a woman drinks a beer outside as opposed to water?

Activists were arrested Sunday evening in Keene. A woman named Heika was arrested first for possession of an open alcohol container in The Square. Further arrests occurred when activists Meg, Wes, Ian, and Rich Paul did not back down from standing in front and behind the police cruisers trying to take Heika and others away.

Further arrests occurred at the police station for allegedly having an open alcohol container inside the police station.

Here is a link to a long live upload from the scene from Ian Freeman.
http://qik.com/video/9339873

And here is a short video of Ian’s arrest:

Further video should be available and coming soon.

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Mass Arrests at Cheshire Jail Rally!

April 25, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 25 Comments
Filed under: Police, Thuggery, Video

Video of a reported, but unconfirmed, 12 people arrested at the jail rally following Free Keene Fest today! They have reportedly been arrested for “trespassing” on the new jail property.

Most of these activists are now out of being processed from within the jail. Save for Lauren, who had an outstanding arrest warrant.

Known arrested:

Ian
Dale
Aubern
Rich Paul
Lauren C.
Richard Onley
Shawn Trifith
Jim Johnson
Mike Segal
Menno Troyer
Capuzzo
Kate

How does this jive with your belief of the people’s “right to assemble” on public property?

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Brandon in Court for Wearing a Hoodie

April 3, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 16 Comments
Filed under: Update, Video

Back in October, while attending an arraignment for recently arrested activists from the Keene Pumpkin Festival, Brandon Durham was asked (told?) to remove his hood while in the court. After refusing multiple times the bailiff’s order, he was arrested and taken off to jail.

This past Wednesday, Brandon had his trial on a charge of trespassing. Not a charge of “wearing a hood in court” or “disobeying a court officer” or even their favorite – “disorderly conduct”. He was charged with trespassing under the logic that the court officer had asked him to leave the court, and he didn’t. Of course he was welcomed in, but suddenly was trespassing when he wanted to wear a hood?

Nonetheless, he had his trial on the charge, and here is the full video:

While Brandon did not offer much of a defense, Judge Howard Lane still saw the case as ambiguous enough to take it under advisement, and we will await a verdict. Maybe, just maybe, he will realize that wearing a piece of clothing is not a $1000 offense, or even a $1 offense.

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Additional Video from Nashua 420 Arrests

March 21, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 11 Comments
Filed under: Civil Disobedience, Police, Ryder Report, Thuggery, Video

FreeKeene Blogger Nick Ryder posts his video of Saturday’s arrest and release of David Krouse and others.

The story also made WMUR: WMUR Story
And the Nashua Telegraph: Nashua Telegraph

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Nashua 420 Leads to 3 Arrests

March 20, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 3 Comments
Filed under: Civil Disobedience, Police, Thuggery

**Further video of these events will be posted in the coming days**
Three people, including one Keene activist, were arrested Saturday afternoon at a 420 rally.

The event, starting at 4:20 pm, was peaceful and drew a lot of local support for around 30 minutes. Locals even joined in the unusually large crowd of people gathered in downtown Nashua. Activists held signs and drew hundreds of honks of support from passers-by.

Suddenly, 30-40 minutes into the event, two plainclothes officers closed in on a 17 year old teenager and arrested him for possession of marijuana. The ensuing moments, which will be posted here and across the web in the form of many videos, included two more arrests, many more police cars, and an attack dog.

Preliminary video courtesy of Ridley Report

Both of the other arrests were for disorderly conduct. David Krouse sat down in front of a police car and was arrested. On the other hand, Catherine Bleish of the Liberty Restoration Project was arrested for allegedly not getting out of the road when she was ordered to. Despite that police were on both sides of the road with a lot of confusion going on.

- The young man arrested first was released to his family from Nashua PD
- David was released from the Nashua Police Dept with an April 1 arraignment.
- Catherine reportedly was not giving her fingerprints, which caused the police to threaten to keep her in jail, but as of 8:45 ET was reportedly set to be released, but any court dates are of now unknown.

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Another Free Keene Supporter to be Jailed

January 31, 2010 by Nick Ryder · 17 Comments
Filed under: Jailed Activist

Police A recent mover within the last year, Andrew Mercer has kept a fairly low profile as far as activism goes, but he’s certainly still been active. He has gone to court hearings when he can, he’s been to a few 4:20 rallies, and he’s accompanied Sam on quests into City Hall for open records requests, he’s even been on a few CopWatching missions. Though he hasn’t gone out looking to push boundaries and engage in disobedience, but he was recently held in Vermont by state troopers just because one of them suspected he had an illegal plant in his possession.

However, Andrew just went to trial on an unrelated case out of Keene involving him being caught driving a car that didn’t have the correct license plate on it. At trial Andrew’s councel, FreeKeene blogger Nick Ryder, argued that the State could not prove that Andrew attached the wrong plate to the car, or allowed anyone else to.

See the officer’s arrest report on Andrew (PDF)
Hear the audio of the trial (27 min length)

Nonetheless, Judge Lane of the Keene District Court found Andrew guilty, and because of his resistance to paying fines to the government, Andrew will be committed to 50 hours in jail over two separate occasions. The first beginning this Tuesday afternoon (02-02-10).

He may be critiqued for “playing by the rules” in trying to defend himself “by the system” in court, but he’s costing the State several times the price of his $150 ticket. And if more people did that, the system would easily grind down.

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Part 2 of Andrew’s VT Holding : The Search

December 3, 2009 by Nick Ryder · 47 Comments
Filed under: Police, Thuggery

As previously reported, Andrew from Keene was held for 2.5 hours by Vermont troopers on December 2nd after he was pulled over, refused a search, a drug dog came out, alerted on the vehicle, and the police tore it apart looking for drugs.

Andrew’s supporters who had driven from Keene to help him were told if they didn’t leave the scene then the police would tow the car away. The previous video left off at the point where Andrew is going to be left alone with the troopers. Part 2 of the video completes the story.

If you’re not going to watch the entire video, skip to timecode 4:45 to watch how happy the trooper is when he thinks he’s found something.

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Keene Activist Held 2.5 Hours by VT Troopers

December 3, 2009 by Nick Ryder · 50 Comments
Filed under: Police, Thuggery

A FreeKeene supporter was pulled over on Wednesday afternoon around 5:20pm for a broken headlight. He was not released until nearly 8pm after the State police brought drug dog out, claimed it alerted on his vehicle, and searched every single thing in his car and on his person, including his shoes and socks. In the end, no drugs were ever found.

Andrew M refused consent to let troopers search his car. They waited 25 minutes for the canine unit to come and walk around it, and then the troopers claimed the dog alerted on the vehicle. Andrew was then given 2 options: Consent to a search, or the car would be taken in. Andrew chose the lesser of two major inconveniences and indicated he’d let the police search him and his car.

Nick Ryder, a FreeKeene blogger, and Chris Miranda, another FreeKeene supporter, arrived on scene with a camera. However, when the trooper wanted to begin his car search, he claimed he would seize the car if Chris and Nick did not leave, so the camera stayed behind in Andrew’s hands while Chris and Nick monitored the situation from afar.

Below is part 1 of the video taken from Wednesday night.