A New Hampshire woman with a federal civil rights lawsuit against Loudon police has settled with the officers involved on the day prior to the scheduled trial. Jessica Dennis had filed the suit in June of 2011, in relation to an incident that had happened to her while she was being arrested in July of 2009. Dennis was in woods near a house party that police were breaking up when she was attacked by a police canine. She sustained injuries from the attack, and after police had pulled the dog off of her, she was taken into custody for suspicion of underage drinking. Reports also indicate that the police immaturely insulted and ridiculed her throughout the ordeal. She would be found guilty of nothing in state criminal court before filing the federal case alleging violations of her civil rights.
I have gotten so used to having my camera groped at by authoritative busybodies that I am beginning to feel as though I should question my relative comfort with it. The first article featured on this blog was about a police officer who couldn’t keep his hands off of my phone when it was acting as an audio streaming device. Since then, I’ve had a previous camera clutched so firmly that it automatically powered off, in an escapade that traveled the blogosphere during the first annual lemonade freedom day. My Canon Vixia’s design is much more rugged and durable than the previous Nikon Coolpix I used to utilize for Free Concord videos. And I appreciate the upgraded zoom capabilities and high definition 16:9 widescreen frame. Today, as I celebrated International Chalk the Police day with others, my camera withstained a push from a Keene city parks and recreation director Andrew Bohannon, as he fumbled to conceal his identity from chalkers. After activists had covered most of the central square park in liberty oriented slogans and quotes, a man driving around the rotary yelled from his vehicle at the chalkers to stop. Myself and others waved and invited the person to join us for Chalk the Police day. Moments later, I noticed a man with a phone who had walked up onto the square and begun speaking with people, phone in hand, and an identification swinging from his neck. (more…)
Keene Police officer Peter Bowers won some major cool points today in downtown Keene when he drew a smiley face with activist-provided chalk, as part of “Chalk the Police” day, a nationwide event sponsored by CopBlock.org! Video below. Even more interesting, Bowers did so after having been called to the square by the head of the parks and recreation department, who was complaining and trying to tell the liberty-loving chalkers to stop chalking, that we weren’t allowed, etc.
The parks and rec “director”, Andy Bohannon, stopped his van in the left lane at the traffic light on the West side of Central Sq. and got out to harass the chalkers, blocking traffic for at least ten minutes. He ironically claimed that people were complaining, but talk about being a public nuisance – HE was the one actually bothering people with his van blocking an entire turn lane!
Bohannon informs us that he’s called the police, and several minutes later they arrive and talk to him as we had run out of places to chalk on Central Sq. and had moved in front of city hall. The officers walk away from Bohannon and through the park where we encountered them as they were walking toward city hall, in front of Bank of America, where we told them it was Chalk the Police day and invited them to join in the fun.
To Bowers’ credit, he asked for yellow and proceeded to draw a smiley face on the sidewalk! What a great way to finish off a successful chalk the police day! Thanks, Peter! Here’s the video: (more…)
Yesterday’s Sunday News featured three articles, including one front page piece on the recent jury nullification victory of Douglas Darrell. The story has been previously covered by Free Keene and the Huffington Post. Darrell, a Rastafari practitioner, stood accused of ‘manufacturing’ some cannabis plants found by police helicopters hovering over his Barnstead property.
Today I went with the Adam Vs The Man crew to Washington, D.C. (Mordor). I went in order to take video of a rally. Adam Kokesh went to speak on a megaphone and help MC the event. He led a march down from the Treasury Building to the Federal Reserve, where about 60 people marched and chanted, “END THE FED, END THE DEBT, END THE WARS.” Upon arrival at the Federal Reserve building, activists lined up to face the building along its front and symbolically turned their backs in an “about face.” Some activists burned dollar bills in front of the building as security guards watched, hopelessly outnumbered by a crowd of peaceful people armed to the teeth with video cameras.
Here’s some video of a speech I gave about living freer by moving to the Shire today (From Fr33manTV):
A New Hampshire woman with a federal civil rights lawsuit against Loudon police has settled with the officers involved on the day prior to the scheduled trial. Jessica Dennis had filed the suit in June of 2011, in relation to an incident that had happened to her while she was being arrested in July of 2009. Dennis was in woods near a house party that police were breaking up when she was attacked by a police canine. She sustained injuries from the attack, and after police had pulled the dog off of her, she was taken into custody for suspicion of underage drinking. Reports also indicate that the police immaturely insulted and ridiculed her throughout the ordeal. She would be found guilty of nothing in state criminal court before filing the federal case alleging violations of her civil rights.
