This post originally published at freeconcord.org.

I recently came home to discover Fred and his partner Josh, parked out front of my house, standing at my new neighbors’ door. They were just leaving and I inquired of Pete, who was there recording, as to what was going on. I was informed that they were threatening the neighbor over the car in their side yard. I informed Fred and Josh that I have no problem with their car being there and that I don’t appreciate them picking on my neighbors. Josh told me to stop eavesdropping, as though when strange men come threatening my neighbors that it’s not my business. I don’t know where Josh lives, but I want to live in a place where neighbors care that their neighbors are being threatened by aggressors.

Afterward, I spoke with the lady next door and assured her that I had not called code enforcement on them and nor would I. If I have an issue with a neighbor, I’ll do like a good neighbor should, and drop by to talk. She informed me that Fred claimed he’d gotten a complaint from another neighbor regarding their car in the yard, because the other neighbor had experienced code enforcers threatening them over the same issue. Typical cycle of abuse. It’s sad to see neighbors using the state agents to threaten one another. It’s also sad to see grown men telling other humans how they have to behave on their own property, when no harm has been done to others. The neighbors’ car in the side yard was hurting no one and it certainly didn’t bother me.

The code enforcement department should be shut down. All they are is a means for people to hide behind and act less neighborly and also a tool to attack neighbors that are disliked (or political dissidents the state agents wish to punish or intimidate).

The employees in the code enforcement department would likely say their job is to ensure homes are safe, but if that were true, why has Fred threatened me with violations, fines, and jail time because of “unregistered” vehicles being parked on the property? What neighbor would care or even know that a car was unregistered? Clearly Fred is on an obedience kick and/or revenue hunt.

If Fred actually were just going around trying to help people be safer, he wouldn’t need to threaten. He could be a code suggestor rather than enforcer, and make helpful suggestions on how to make construction better and safer.

Of course, Fred is not a construction worker. He’s a former cop who is playing detective again on people and their “code” violations. I’d imagine most people who see Fred don’t much want his services.

This was unacceptable to me. It’s highly ineffective. Why sit at a table all day or even for a few hours, when my friends and I can deliver hundreds of fliers in fifteen minutes during class change? Besides, aren’t college campuses advertised as the holy grail of free speech? What a bunch of nonsense.

So, last week on Thursday, I returned to the campus with new mover Daryl Perry. Since I had no fliers to promote the 420 celebration happening at the Concord state house the following day, I brought along a megaphone. We walked around during a class change and I called out invitations to the students to join us for 4/20. The messages were well received by the students, as they always are.

However, after about fifteen minutes, college security officers were headed our way. They ran us off-campus and then Daryl was pulled over by Keene Police’s Jason Short on the way home. Here is video of that interaction, complete with an “aha” moment as Jason connects the dots on the irony of his smoking a cigar while helping cage other peaceful drug users (just like him) in his role as a detective and enforcer for the NH drug task force. (He is inquiring at the time about his entry on the Keene Police Fanpage on facebook, which has a photo of him smoking a cigar.)

By the way, Darryl never touched the megaphone or handed out fliers. He’d never been to the campus before. He was also given a 1-year no trespass notice!

The Keene police scanner audio reveals that the two suspects were taken into custody AFTER the police shot the third man to death. The Sentinel’s report makes it sound like the reverse happened:

At least one person was on the roof of the building when police arrived. He and another man were taken into custody after a short pursuit, authorities said.
A man who was not captured allegedly left the area in a car and led police on a pursuit to Marlboro Street.

Their mis-reporting led FK’s Ademo to write his opinion piece, in which he assumed the Sentinel got it right and therefore makes several mistaken conclusions. Remember, as you listen to this audio, the blank spaces have been mostly excised from the piece to make it easier to listen. In the full audio, it’s more than ten minutes before officer Jennifer Uhas (118) announces she has the first suspect in custody. Less than a minute later, the second suspect is in custody as well. In their report, the Sentinel claims to have their own scanner – so why the botched reporting?

The audio is pretty intense, and Keene police for the most part, do the best they can to bring aggressors to justice, backed by four state troopers, a couple of county sheriffs, and mutual aid units from Winchester, Dublin, and Troy. Sadly, some officers opted to use deadly force to stop the third suspect from running, which seems entirely inappropriate and even reckless, far beyond the recklessness of engaging in an unnecessary high-speed chase. Police should not use deadly force to stop someone unless that person is endangering life. Of course it’s wrong to break, enter, and steal, but killing and endangering the community with gunfire and high speeds is not the answer.

Details are scarce from the scene of the shooting at this time, but it looks like some Keene police officers killed a man who was merely fleeing and not threatening anyone directly. Speculating from the scanner audio, it could have been James Lamoureux (171) and Eli Rivera (75) who pulled the trigger. Of course, this presumes the Sentinel is correct in their claim that two officers shot at the fleeing suspect. As we’ve seen, you can’t count on them to get the story right. More as this develops.

Prediction based on how these things go in other communities: Both officers are put on paid leave while the case is investigated internally. Both officers are eventually exonerated of any wrongdoing, as the “fleeing felon” rule allows cops to shoot people in the back, even if they pose no imminent threat. At least, as I understand it. Perhaps Brad Jardis will tell us more. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest.

Listen to the KPD scanner feed here 24/7 and on your smart phone via the free TuneIn app. As you listen, you can figure out who is who by checking officer numbers here.

You can download the edition for this week here. Topics covered include the attack against and kidnapping of Free Keene blogger Derrick J as well as the Monadnock Regional High School free speech showdown.

You can add Radio Free Keene News to your podcast client via this RSS feed.

KEENE — Thanks, but no tanks. That’s what some residents are saying in opposition to a city plan to purchase an armored vehicle for emergency response.

An outcry resulted after the City Council accepted a $285,933 Homeland Security grant in December — without a public hearing — to buy a LENCO BearCat Special Missions armored vehicle. Now the BearCat’s fate awaits the City Council’s final decision, expected at its March 1,7 p.m., meeting at Keene City Hall.

The city’s reconsideration of the grant got national media attention, including an article in the Huffington Post, sparking thousands of comments online about the role of the federal government.

Mike Clark, a 27-year-old handyman currently facing a criminal mischief charge in Keene — and the son of the sole Keene council member to vote against accepting the Homeland Security money — told the Huffington Post he has had encounters with Keene police and was “roughed up” both times.

“The police are already pretty brutal,” Clark said. “The last thing they need is this big piece of military equipment to make them think they’re soldiers.”

“It’s an armored vehicle, not an armed vehicle and there’s a big difference,” Keene Police Capt. Brian Costa said in describing the BearCat.

The vehicle would look pretty much like armored vehicles used by banks, he said.

“It’s a Brink’s truck. We see these all the times. All this vehicle is, it affords the first responders … an added protection of safety,” Costa said.

Costa said the BearCat would have been useful during the 2005 floods.

“We lost one cruiser directly in the flood trying to evacuate people from out of their homes,” he said. “We certainly would have used this vehicle in those floods.”

The BearCat would not be used to disperse a peaceful assembly, he said.

The BearCat would have four-wheel drive, a thermal-imaging camera, combustible gas detectors and a radiation detector, according to Costa.

‘Poster child of waste’

Councilor Terry Clark said he plans to make a motion to rescind the acceptance of the grant at the March 1 meeting.

“I can only speak for myself, but I sense that I am gaining support,” Clark said.

Clark said his major concern was best expressed by the LENCO representative, who told the council that Homeland Security grants allow the company to tap into the $34 billion domestic terrorism budget.

“This seems to be a poster child of waste,” Clark said. “This is an agreement between the government and arms dealers, essentially.”

A public hearing on the grant was held Feb. 9 after residents submitted a 144-signature petition asking for the hearing.

Roberta Mastrogiovanni, owner of Corner News Store on Main Street, told council members at the hearing that she opposed the vehicle’s purchase.

“I spoke to hundreds of people,” she said. “Everyone I spoke to seemed to agree that Keene really does not need a vehicle of this caliber. Many felt that rather than militarize our police department, we should try to promote more human interaction with our officers.”

Edward Gross, who said he spent 27 years on the city police force, defended the BearCat’s purchase.

“We can argue the cost of the vehicle … If you want to consider costs, consider a seriously injured officer or the death of an officer,” he said.

But the vast majority of those at the hearing opposed the BearCat’s purchase.

State Rep. Steve Lindsay said: “As one who spends Saturdays the last 11 years protesting our wars in Central Square, I fear this vehicle.”

Fitzwilliam withdraws

Costa said this week he wants the public to have accurate information about the vehicle.

The BearCat would be used regionally, so if there is an emergency in another town, Keene police could respond, he said. There are already five or six of these armored-type vehicles in the state, he said, but none in southwestern New Hampshire.

“When this grant opportunity came up, it made a whole bunch of geographic sense,” Costa said.

All police chiefs in Cheshire County, as well as the Cheshire County Sheriff’s Department, have agreed to set aside $100 a year to pay into a maintenance fund for the BearCat.

But on Wednesday, Councilor Clark said he and other councilors had received a letter from Fitzwilliam selectmen saying their police chief had no authority to enter into the agreement and the town did not want to participate.

“I understand that there’s danger out there and I do care deeply about the safety of our police,” Clark said, but noted there have only been two murders in the city of 23,000 in the past 14 to 15 years and the city has never lost a policeman in the line of duty.

On Thursday of this week, I was getting ready to leave for the Manchester Airport with Kelly when “code enforcer” Fred Parcells was spotted pulling out of my next-door-neighbor’s driveway. Then I realized that I had a ticket on my windshield, and so did Kelly!

Fred had sneakily pulled up into my neighbor’s driveway, and somehow plopped tickets on our two cars while we were outside in plain view. I say that he did it sneakily because despite the fact that we were outside about 20 feet away from our cars, he didn’t use his words to talk to us or make his presence apparent.

Over the last year, Fred has victimized me with a handful of tickets for crimes involving no victim. It’s part of his modus operandi to remain silent while dispensing state violence in the form of tickets. It seems he has forgotten how to deal with issues like a human being and instead resorts to threats of force in response to petty issues and made-up charges like this one. He has no obligation to ticket anyone, so he is pursuing these interactions intentionally despite what some may say about him “just doing his job.”

Last time I received a ticket from Fred, it was for the same charge: he claimed that my car was impeding the path of the sidewalk, which was untrue. It appears he just likes to boss people around and not stand behind his claims because the tickets that have been levied against me have all been dropped when I inform the court that I demand a trial.

It’s as simple as that. Hate paying tickets? Refuse to pay. Take the aggressors to court and make them PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt that 1) there is a victim, and 2) they can produce bulletproof evidence of the crime. Police can almost never do either of these things. That doesn’t mean you will win in court, but it does increase the likelihood that law enforcement will drop the charges.

Despite the fact that many jurisdictions reward the state aggressor with overtime (1.5x) hourly pay for testifying in court, many agents back down from those situations. They are, for the time being, unused to their victims standing up for themselves.

You can change that by clicking the banner ad above.

I was pulled over while driving 50 mph in a 55 mph zone. The officer alleges I was going 72. That is impossible because I was stuck behind a slow-moving pickup truck for about 20 miles, and that truck was keeping me slowed at a pace of 50 mph.

To learn more about why I take the time and energy to fight arbitrarily-written tickets, click below:

I was driving from Keene to Manchester with Luthor Kingsley of the Shire. We were about halfway there when I passed a cop. Luthor pointed him out; he was hiding on the side of the highway with his lights off. I checked my speed and was relieved to notice that I was going 50mph. I almost certainly would have been going faster if not for the truck in front of me holding me up in the single lane of traffic. Then I saw the blue lights behind me. I fired up my camera and asked Luthor to record.

The cop told me I couldn’t see the radar, that Luthor had to turn off the audio on the camera, that Luthor had to give the cop his ID, and that it was illegal wiretapping to record audio of him without his permission. We gave him a bit of a schooling in the law with polite refusal to comply with his demands. He returned with a ticket for $103.33.

I’ll be seeing him in court. I would rather be left alone. I don’t enjoy giving up my valuable time and energy and resources to defend myself against being extorted by agents of the state. I’ve already spent about 24 hours in filming, editing, researching law, and posting about this event. Now I’ll have a day in court, travel expenses, plus the opportunity costs of a day’s work in order to attend court, or I will have a warrant out for my arrest. Then, in court, if I am found guilty, I will likely face 2 days in jail to pay off the fine at $50 a day.

Some stranger with a badge is incentivized by a quota system to spend his time pulling over people like me who haven’t victimized anyone. For him, it’s 15 minutes and he can wash his hands of the situation and collect his paycheck–unless someone takes the issue to court rather than paying the fine. In that case, he is rewarded for his victimization by being paid time and a half for his appearance in court. The taxpayers of his town will be forced to foot the bill for that expense. As a result of his actions, I could be put in a cage (again at the expense of the taxpayer) for what was a non-situation.

The absurdity makes my head spin. If you’d like to help me meet expenses to handle this case successfully and document the process with video, please donate at LiveFreeOrDance.com

(Please write to the city council at 3 Washington St. and encourage them to refuse the fed’s corrupt offer of the Bearcat.)

The recent flurry of letters regarding the City Council vote to approve the “free” offer of a BearCat assault vehicle shows the unease many of us are feeling these days about both the growing militarization of our local communities and the budgetary choices being made by our leaders at the national, state and local levels during these tight fiscal times.

Perhaps this issue has galvanized such a community response because it symbolizes the increasing emphasis on guns, so-called security and the “fear factor” that has occurred in this country in recent years, including the Monadnock region.

I have lived twice in countries that were dictatorships (Uruguay in 1975 and Chile from 1984-1989) and the truth is that as an average law-abiding citizen I feel the security apparatus presence more strongly in Keene than I ever did in Uruguay or Chile.

From the loud alarm in Central Square that rings out to jar the senses each time there is an incident that involves fire or police, to the flashing blue lights the police use to pull over car that used to set my young son into panic, to the prison perched high on the hill to the entrance to Keene from the east, and more, I concur with what a German friend of mine who lives in Keene once said to me, “Keene sometimes feels like a police state.”

And now we will soon have an assault vehicle for local use.

This issue also shows the power we each have to say “no,” even when we think our one voice does not make a difference.

Councilor Terry Clark exhibited this courage in his recent vote, and his comment about not wanting to further encourage the “culture of war,” and his courage is to be commended.

We have lived for such a long time in a “culture of war,” that it can be hard to envision what a society based upon a “culture of peace” would be like.

But many people and communities in the United States and around the world are trying to do just this, right now.

On Saturday, March 3, the Fourth annual New Hampshire Culture of Peace conference will be held at Keene State College. This year’s theme will focus on “advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity.”

SKYE STEPHENSON

14 Barrett Ave.

Keene

Let voters decide on truck

Is it possible that the City Council has been duped by such a deal too good to turn down once again?

Let’s ask for a full disclosure of the fine-print lawyer’s contract they signed with the feds. I’ll bet there is a skunk in the BearCat trunk that will make all of us smell bad before this foolish, rash “super deal ” by the City Council is nullified.

Return this war tank now during the 30-day trial warranty period.

Or, let’s put it on the next ballot for a public vote and let the city voters decide.

All agreed?

STUART CARSWELL

P.O. Box 331

Keene

Kudos to those citizens urging the Keene City Council reconsideration of the Lenco BearCat.

By now, most readers know this military assault vehicle has been offered to the city by the Department of Homeland Security, paid for by we the people of the U.S.

While the BearCat name may conjure fur and claws, the acronym is less fuzzy: Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck.

Is this really what Keene needs?

Other recent letters have raised important points about better uses for this money in a time of need, and the unnecessary militarization of the Keene police force. My contribution is to remind the City Council of another important and ultimately successful about-face it took several years ago.

In 2000, the city was fully committed to accepting the Department of Transportation’s supersized plan for a $66 million Keene bypass.

Part of the justification was that the feds would pick up 80 percent of the cost. Then, a growing wave of concerned citizens showed the City and the DOT a solution that was a better fit for Keene and, at less than $10 million, a huge savings to the taxpayer.

The council was resistant at first but eventually realized it was time to back away from the DOT’s plan and embrace the citizens’ plan.

Today, it is time for the City Council to similarly reverse itself on the Lenco BearCat. If you agree, write or call City Hall.

I also plan on copying this letter to Senators Shaheen and Ayotte and Congressman Bass to let them know there are many who do not agree with spending our scarce federal resources in this manner.

BOB KING

42 Hurricane Road

Keene