It’s back, now on a new frequency, 94.3 FM! You can listen to the best liberty-oriented audio programs from LRN.FM – the Liberty Radio Network, 24/7, now in Keene on “Liberty 94.3”! You can also join the listeners’ group here.
What do the Keene Police have to hide?
Today (Aug 7, 2012) I called the Keene Police Department to check the status of my Concealed Carry License application. I applied for the license on July 20. It’s my understanding that NH law requires that the local police department “shall-issue” all valid applicants within 14 days (10 business days) of applying. Applicants must call and ask for an answer–they will not call you. However, if a person has NOT been approved, they will mail that person with an explanation as to why they were denied, and they must do that within 14 days. The clerk (Pat) at the records department said that my application was not in the “approved” pile, and that the man in charge of applications (Michael Goodchild) was on vacation until Aug. 20. She gave me his voicemail, and I left a message. In his voicemail recording, he directs callers to contact Jim McLaughlin with any issues. When I phoned Jim McLaughlin and told him I was audio recording, he told me he did not consent to being recorded and redirected my call to Michael Goodchild’s voicemail again. The third time I called, I explained to the clerk what had happened and asked to speak with someone who would talk to me on the record. After waiting on hold for a few minutes, Pat returned and said that the “Chief of Police” Ken Meola told her that “Captain” Costa would call me back today regarding this issue. Very curious…
Video of the phone call here (pt1) and here (pt2 – the denial).
The law regarding Concealed Carry Licenses can be found here.
I am currently in self-imposed exile from the Shire. Read about and support my activism by clicking here.
Ademo’s story has hit major nationwide media including the Huffington Post’s front page, FARK.com, Digg.com’s front page, and the front page of NH’s top newspaper, the Union Leader. In addition, the story has become the most viewed story of all time on CNN Ireport!
Reader comments are overwhelmingly pro-Ademo and press freedom!
UPDATE: Wikileaks has tweeted the story to over 1.5 million followers.
From freeconcord.org:
A suspicionless checkpoint will be established by the police on the roads of Concord some time during the first week of August. It’s no wild guess to predict that the court-sanctioned violation of rights will be occurring on either a Friday or Saturday evening. At the checkpoint, vehicles will be profiled and stopped without probable cause for the offence of happening to pass through the designated security area. These checkpoints are established in the name of preventing DUIs, though often more arrests are made for victimless crimes not related to impaired driving. Beyond the arrests made, the police produce thousands of dollars in revenue for the state by operating these checkpoints, as dozens of drivers are cited for innocuous motor vehicle violations. At a recent suspicionless checkpoint in Bedford, the Union Leader reports that of the 330 vehicles that were stopped, twenty-eight drivers were given motor vehicle citations, four were arrested for non-alcohol drug possession, one arrested on an immigration charge, and a whopping four drunk drivers were arrested. Also profiting from the festivities are the towing and impounding companies utilized by police.
In the Union Leader’s thorough overview of a night spent at the police’s peacetime security checkpoint, they describe the state’s modified RV, the DUI Mobile Command Center. In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like inside the Command Center, here’s a video I took of the vehicle on display at Concord’s law enforcement National Night Out, August 2, 2012.
Radio Free Keene News is a five minute newscast which is available as a podcast and also will air at the top of some hours on LRN.FM.
Topics covered include the Keene School Board’s refusal to allow veterans access to Keene High School and the potential impeachment of “superior” court judge John P. Arnold. Here’s the archive:
You can add Radio Free Keene News to your podcast client via this RSS feed.
Radley Balko, HuffPo journalist and chief of The Agitator blog reports on the increasing corporate media focus around a “war on cops”. 2012 is shaping up to be one of the safest years for law enforcement since 1944; a much different time for policing in the US.
A few other media outlets are now picking up on the massive drop in police fatality statistics this year (Welcome to the story!) But so far, none of them have questioned what happened to all of those alleged trends (gun ownership, increasing contempt for cops, videotaping of police misconduct, anti-government sentiment, decreases in funding for police departments) that they all reported were behind the non-existent “war on cops” they were all reporting last year. Or in the case of the New York Times, as recently as April.
If we use the numbers from the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, there are 800,000 cops on the streets. There have been 53 on-the -job fatalities so far this year. But 21 of those were car accidents. There have been 19 firearms homicides against police. I looked through the descriptions of this year’s officer deaths at the NLEMF page. Two of the fatalities were from firearms injuries sustained in previous years (in one case, 30 years ago). That puts us at 17 for this year. I then looked through the 13 deaths classified as “other.” Four of those appear to have been homicides—three stabbings, and one officer who died from a blot clot resulting from an altercation with an inmate. So let’s add those to our 17. That gives us 21 homicides in the first half of 2012 (I’ll go ahead and count the two officers killed during SWAT-like drug raids, even though it’s possible the tactics themselves may have contributed to the officers’ deaths).
By my math, that gives us a homicide rate of 5.25 (more…)
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