Here’s the article. Thanks to reporter Anika Clark and photojournalist Michael Moore for covering yesterday’s oppression:
A bit of commotion is nothing new in the courtroom.
But on Monday, the action was in the Keene District Court lobby, where five people were arrested and two were handed summonses on charges of disorderly conduct.
The hubbub started shortly before the arraignment of Dave Ridley, who was arrested in March, accused of refusing to turn off his video camera in the court lobby before attending the arraignment of a marijuana activist.
According to Ian “Freeman” Bernard of the Free State Project — a movement that bills itself on its Web site as a push to recruit 20,000 “liberty-loving people” to New Hampshire — about 15-20 activists had flocked to the court to attend Ridley’s arraignment.
Among them, said Bernard and others on the scene, was Samuel Dodson, who was arrested after allegedly refusing to turn off a video camera in the lobby.
Throughout the process, Keene police Sgt. Eliezer Rivera said, Dodson declined to give police his name — or even to stand up — and was booked as John Doe.
But when he started yelling from behind closed doors, activists demanded to know what was happening. Dodson was lying on the floor in what Rivera described as “passive resistance.”
“(Dodson) was screaming and we had no idea what was going on,” said 18-year-old Patrick S. Shields of Keene.
Standing between the crowd and the conference room door, Rivera told the activists they needed to leave or they’d be given summonses.
Some complied. Others lingered and within minutes, additional police had arrived in the lobby.
People who gave their names, such as 55-year-old Richard T. Onley and Nicholas Ryder, 27, were issued summonses. Others who declined, like Shields, were handcuffed and taken to the Keene police station.
As Dodson reportedly did, Shields went limp during his arrest and had to be carried out of the building. He later told The Sentinel he thought this was the only way he could refrain from complying with the police’s orders without actively resisting.
As for refusing to give his name to the officer, Shields said, “If I’d said my name without thinking of the consequences, then that would just be obeying authority without questioning it.”
One thing Shields did question, however, was how he could be charged with disorderly conduct when, he said, he was simply sitting on a lobby bench when he was arrested.
“I’m trying to send a message to the city of Keene that violence against peaceful people is unacceptable,” Shields said of his actions Monday.
Also arrested and brought to the Keene police station were Nicholas D. Krouse, 27, Kurt W. Hoffman, 38, and Timothy Danforth, 23.
“This is the first time I’ve been arrested and what (police) do is uncalled for,” Krouse said. “They’re going behind closed doors and then expecting us to just accept their answers as proof positive that everything’s (okay).”
Hoffman — who said he was was one of a slew of people who stood with protest signs outside the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland, where Dodson was being held Monday afternoon — echoed him.
While Dodson was sequestered in the district court conference room, “I wanted to go see him and see if he was all right. It sounded like he was being abused,” Hoffman said. “(Police) wouldn’t let us know anything.”
But Rivera said isolating Dodson from the rest of the crowd represented a “safety” measure.
“I didn’t have a choice but to tell people … ‘you need to leave,’ ” he said, adding that as police were arresting Dodson, “We don’t want them on top of us.”
In reference to what was happening in the court conference room, he said, “As soon as (Dodson) was touched by a police (officer), he would start yelling.
“In my opinion, he was trying to get attention,” Rivera said, while saying that a certain amount of police force is necessary to deal with someone who is lying, dead weighted, on the floor.
Regardless of whether Shields was sitting or standing at the time of his arrest, Rivera said, “he did not leave.”
And as for filming in the lobby, he said that this space is an extension of the courtroom — and is filled, at times, by people attending to other business in city hall or by children and victims of rape or domestic violence.
“The last thing a … victim of domestic violence wants is someone with a camera recording them,” Rivera said.
While not specifically outlined in N.H. district court rules — which allow media, in most cases, to videotape or record public court proceedings — state judicial branch spokeswoman Laura A. Kiernan said it’s general practice not to allow videotaping in court hallways.
“We’ve talked about this at length and the Free Staters know that,” she said. “We’re doing the best we can to maintain civility, security and orderly behavior in our courthouses.”
But, according to Rivera, the commotion on Monday was anything but.
“Basically, it brought the court process to a halt,” he said.
Still, Krouse pointed his finger back at law enforcement.
“We did not represent a threat,” he said. “The waste of police resources was entirely the fault of the police.”
Dodson was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Keene District Court.
