Keene liberty activists stop at a gas station on the way back from Avatar and encounter a busybody from Massachusetts haranguing a young man she doesn’t know for saying fuck in his conversation with his friend at the pump. She calls the cops. He asks us to stick around as witnesses. When the cop arrives, we were live on Live.FreeKeene.com. The cop gets upset about the camera but ignores it after it becomes clear that I am not backing down to his demands I stop recording. Later on he gets friendly and chats with us about living in Keene:
As previously reported, Andrew from Keene was held for 2.5 hours by Vermont troopers on December 2nd after he was pulled over, refused a search, a drug dog came out, alerted on the vehicle, and the police tore it apart looking for drugs.
Andrew’s supporters who had driven from Keene to help him were told if they didn’t leave the scene then the police would tow the car away. The previous video left off at the point where Andrew is going to be left alone with the troopers. Part 2 of the video completes the story.
If you’re not going to watch the entire video, skip to timecode 4:45 to watch how happy the trooper is when he thinks he’s found something.
A FreeKeene supporter was pulled over on Wednesday afternoon around 5:20pm for a broken headlight. He was not released until nearly 8pm after the State police brought drug dog out, claimed it alerted on his vehicle, and searched every single thing in his car and on his person, including his shoes and socks. In the end, no drugs were ever found.
Andrew M refused consent to let troopers search his car. They waited 25 minutes for the canine unit to come and walk around it, and then the troopers claimed the dog alerted on the vehicle. Andrew was then given 2 options: Consent to a search, or the car would be taken in. Andrew chose the lesser of two major inconveniences and indicated he’d let the police search him and his car.
Nick Ryder, a FreeKeene blogger, and Chris Miranda, another FreeKeene supporter, arrived on scene with a camera. However, when the trooper wanted to begin his car search, he claimed he would seize the car if Chris and Nick did not leave, so the camera stayed behind in Andrew’s hands while Chris and Nick monitored the situation from afar.
Below is part 1 of the video taken from Wednesday night.
Brad Jardis dared speak out about ending prohibition and was targeted by the good-old-boys in the Epping police department for termination. Tonight at the termination hearing he was kept on as a police officer, pending a “psychological evaluation”. Will they determine that believing in liberty is crazy and fire him later? Time will tell. For now, Jardis is still a NH law enforcement officer. Plus, he’s a regular participant of the Free Keene Forum. Here’s his thread about this situation.
Dave Ridley interviews Brad moments after the well-attended hearing in Epping tonight:
When videographers tried to document Kurt Hoffman being taken out of the Keene District Court on a stretcher, they were met with extreme resistance, forced into a side room, and issued threats of being penalized for violating HIPAA.
Not once has anyone been able to show us the text of HIPAA that restricts people from recording patients in public. In fact, you may be surprised to see that in the video below, a videographer in Keene openly records the scene of an accident and the patient, without his consent, and the police don’t even seem to acknowledge it as an issue.
Recently, Ian Freeman met with Keene City Manager John MacLean to discuss the city’s policy on city government employees committing crimes on the job. However, instead of discussing the best way to deal with the inappropriate behavior of city employees who steal and hurt people, this meeting brings up a different problem in local government… lying. Apparently video proof isn’t enough to overrule the word of bureaucrats.
