You thought police body cameras would help with police transparency? Well, think again. The motion cites RSA 105-D:2 XII, a terrible statute that appears to criminalize editing, copying, sharing, and even displaying any BWC footage. Though the section starts by saying it, “shall apply to law enforcement” agencies who use BWCs, later in part XII, it claims “all persons” are subject to the insane restrictions. It’s an obviously unconstitutional restriction on the people’s right to free speech and to be the free press. See Article 22 of the NH Constitution’s Bill of Rights:
Free speech and Liberty of the press are essential to the security of Freedom in a State: They ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved.” Among other things, the statute also instructs police to not record interactions with other police employees, meaning any conversations between them is off-the-record.
Manchon received the footage from his discovery request as he prepares his defense on a ridiculous pullover by Hillsboro police. According to Manchon, he was pulled over wrongfully on an long-cancelled restraining order. HPD dispatch misinformed patrol officers that the order was still in place. It was originally put in place by his girlfriend over a non-violent misunderstanding and then it was removed in January after they were able to get back on good terms. They currently live happily together, I know that because she is my friend. She is pregnant with his child, hence, she was also with him in the car on August 12th, when HPD officers pulled them over:
Despite being informed by the couple that the restraining order was no longer in effect, the officers refused to research the restraining order to confirm the claim, instead arresting Manchon and charging him with “Disobeying an Officer”, then later changing that charge to “Resisting Detention”, by allegedly not getting out of the car fast enough for their liking. Later in the month, when visiting Hillsboro District Court for a right-to-record event, Manchon stopped by HPD headquarters and was arrested again for “Disorderly Conduct” and “Breach of Bail” for allegedly asking his viewers to contact Hillsboro Police at (603) 464-5512 to let them know how they feel about their corrupt police activity. It is not illegal to encourage people to redress their grievances with government thugs. In fact, Manchon and his attorney won against similarly frivolous charges in Claremont District Court last year. You can watch that full trial video here.
Hopefully the legislature will update this terrible statute to protect the people from criminal charges for sharing BWC videos and make BWC videos even more transparent and accessible without requiring criminal charges to get the videos in discovery, as right now the statute claims the videos are “for law enforcement purposes only” in part XIII. Obviously this restriction on access is also a violation of Article 8 of the NH Constitution’s Bill of Rights:
Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive. To that end, the public’s right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted.
According to Manchon, the Hillsboro District Court has scheduled a hearing on the requested “protective order” for Monday Sept 25th, at 11am.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on this ridiculous case and please do share, copy, and display Manchon’s video so Hillsboro’s scum prosecutor can charge dozens of people for exercising their free speech. Speaking and sharing is a right, but if we don’t stand for our rights, we’ll surely lose them.
O’Donnell approaches Manchon in a apartment building parking lot and seizes his beer, then after Manchon refuses to show ID, O’Donnell puts him in cuffs. All the while, Manchon is explaining to O’Donnell that he’s going to have to let him go, pointing out O’Donnell should have conducted his investigation of the beer prior to cuffing Manchon. Once he does look at the bottle, O’Donnell looks embarrassed as he uncuffs Manchon and lets him go.
Despite having backed down on enforcement within the Council chambers, Press NH Now’s video shows the enforcement of this victimless “crime” of “open container” continues unabated on the streets. Thank you to Press NH Now for his service to police accountability.
Keene activists are ready for a new wave of activism. Riley Blake, a new mover and Free Talk Live host, is hosting weekly 420 meet ups in downtown Keene. Press NH Now, a police accountability activist recently moved to Keene. Most recently, I took a parking ticket to court.
In this video you’ll see the whole process of how to do it yourself. I’ll explain it here, although this is not legal advice as i am not an attorney. First, you have to contest the ticket which is done at City Hall. Bring your ticket and your ID and registration if applicable. Then you’ll get served a court date. That does mean a psychopath with a shiny badge and a gun will likely come visit your home to give you the ticket so make sure you film your encounter and warn any roommates about what you’re doing. Then, you show up to the court date they give you. You don’t need to hire a lawyer for this and they won’t give you a public defender for a fifteen dollar ticket. You could tell the judge you don’t understand the nature or cause of the charge so you cannot plea guilty. You can use that as an opportunity to ask him questions about why you’re there that day. I asked the judge in my case if I am entitled to a fair trial. He said yes. I asked him if I could get a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest. He didn’t answer my question. He lied and said he couldn’t answer that yes-or-no question because he’d have to know what the conflict of interest would be. That’s non-responsive but I didn’t object since I didn’t want to piss him off that early. The obvious answer is that it wouldn’t be a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest in the case. Next, I asked the judge who he represents. He lied and said he doesn’t represent anyone. That stumped me because I knew the judge could say whatever he wanted but I hadn’t expected a human being to stand in front of me and say he represents no one, not even himself. That doesn’t even make sense but we are in legal land when we are in court. So up is down and down is up as Marc Stevens would say. I dropped my questioning and he asked if I would like to plea and I still said no. He gave me a trial date in July.
The prosecution didn’t end up giving me discovery until the day before trial. So the day before trial I went to the court house and the police station to file a Motion to Dismiss with the judge. You have to go to the police station and file it there to because they give it to the prosecution and you must notify them as well. The day of the trial, the judge granted a continuance so I would have more time but didn’t grant my motion to dismiss. So a trial was rescheduled for two weeks later. I was actually happy it didn’t get dropped because I wanted to cross examine Jane McDermott, the old lady thug who wrote the ticket and left it on the car I was using. The day of trial I was able to do that. I got to ask her a lot of fun questions including how much she gets paid to be at court. She was on her day off but being paid twenty-five dollars an hour to be there. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Writing parking tickets is objectively not just something the City of Keene needs to do in order to maintain parking spaces. If it was, they wouldn’t spend all of this money paying the parking enforcer, the prosecutor and the judge to be in court in order to get fifteen dollars out of me. I believe the real reason is to create an atmosphere of fear and make sure people stay obedient. No private company maintaining these parking spaces would waste so much money. But they don’t care, it’s your tax dollars they’re wasting so why be responsible with it? They’ll get more out of you, right? If you don’t pay them they’ll come to your house and shoot your dog and bring you to prison.
I won the case because when Jason Short, the prosecutor, rested his case I motioned to dismiss on the basis that he never showed any evidence that I was the one who had been operating the vehicle or that I owned the car, since it’s registered under a church for which I am a minister. But even if you try this yourself and your car is registered under your name, if the prosecution rests without showing any evidence that you were the one operating the vehicle or that the meter was actually out of time, you could motion to dismiss. The judge may just not like you and deny your motion. He may order you to pay the fifteen dollars. If you really want to be a stellar activist you can tell him you’re not going to pay the fine. He will either make you do community service or put you in jail for one day. But, (and this is especially true if you are able to film the trial,) they don’t want to be seen throwing people in jail over fifteen dollars. If enough people contest their tickets, they will be so backed up there’s no way they would be able to continue this racket.
Please enjoy the video of the whole process. It’s fun to laugh at how ridiculous of a situation we are in while in court trying not to be harmed by these freaks who believe they are superhuman. They wear suits, badges and robes. They speak in ritualistic patterns. They will reprimand you for getting frustrated with someone who is lying under oath about you. They pretend it’s fair that all of them are on the same team against you. But that’s the “fair and just” legal system we are forced to not feel contempt for!
It was about ten degrees Fahrenheit at around 6am on March 16th, 2021 when dozens of armed agents from the FBI, IRS, USPS, ATF, and Keene Police swarmed onto the duplex containing the Free Talk Live studio. They smashed in windows and a front door, set off explosions, flew in drones, and held multiple peaceful bitcoin activists at gunpoint. Simultaneous raids were being conducted in multiple other locations, with six people arrested in total. They were since dubbed “the Crypto Six” by supporters.
One had her charges dropped and three have taken plea deals despite never harming another human being. Two remain, facing hundreds of years in prison for completely victimless, made-up financial “crimes” regarding bitcoin.
Now, more than a year later, the FBI has returned the surveillance DVRs they took from the property. This is some of the footage taken at the scene of the Free Talk Live studio in Keene, NH:
New Hampshire HB 1682 was introduced by Rep. David Welch (R – Rockingham13) on 1/5/2022, followed by a public hearing on 1/14/2022. The House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety voted that the bill “ought to pass with amendment” and has been referred to the House Finance Committee for further review.
On the Surface It Sounds Great: Hold Police Accountable for Their Actions
The idea of this bill is to establish a committee that’s considered “independent” and separate from local police jurisdictions in order to ensure police officers are held accountable for their actions (or inactions.) According to Rep. David Welch, the aim of the bill is “to establish a single, neutral, and independent statewide entity to receive complaints alleging misconduct regarding all sworn and elected law enforcement officers.” – HB 1682 public hearing, 1/14/2022 – watch here
As outlined in the bill, officers could potentially face the new Conduct Review Committee for a number of reasons, including: if they’ve been convicted of committing a felony, any sentence of incarceration, excessive use of force, driving while intoxicated, moral turpitude (dishonesty, deceit, theft), acts of omission, lying in a police report or criminal proceeding, falsification of records, tampering with or falsifying evidence, racist conduct or statements, etc.
This all sounds great, because of course law enforcement officers should be held accountable for their actions! Which makes me wonder, why aren’t they now?
Policing the Police With Police
There’s already an established Police Standards and Training Council that handles internal reviews in New Hampshire. The new Law Enforcement Conduct Review Committeewould fall under that umbrella, dealing exclusively with misconduct reviews. In recent years the public’s interest in holding police accountable has skyrocketed. Perhaps there are so many cases of police misconduct in the state that they can no longer handle the workload or process them quickly enough.
Since the new Conduct Review Committee would fall under the already established Standards Council, the governor would (again) be appointing its members. The current Police Standards and Training Council consists of mainly a bunch of police officers appointed by Governor Sununu. Since it is the governor who will be appointing members here again, I’m not sure this bill will be as effective as it looks. A politician hand-picking members within the context of “maintaining absolute objectivity” is a farce.
The Law Enforcement Conduct Review Committee would consist of:
Four law enforcement officers appointed by the governor
Three public members with no familial associations to a police officer, lawyer, or judge
This bill would give police the right to tell any person they must stay back at least 30 feet.
A new bill was introduced to the NH House on January 5, 2022 that, if passed, could have serious, far-reaching consequences for 1st amendment auditors and anyone attempting to witness or film police interactions in New Hampshire.
NH HB 1025 was presented to the New Hampshire House Committee on January 19, 2022. Committee members voted unanimously to recommend ITL (inexpedient to legislate) status for this bill. Nineteen of the 21 members were present, with a final vote in favor of ITL: “Yea” – 19 votes; “Nay” – 0 votes; with 2 not voting. You can view the vote in the video below (48:35 – 52:10.)
