Pam Slack and Eight Other Councilors Vote for Marijuana Decriminalization

by | Sep 18, 2009 | 6 comments

cannabis

Bravo to Pam Slack and the rest of those who voted for marijuana reform at the city council meeting last night.

To those who opposed it, please note there is nothing wrong with the city council working toward hurting people less often. If they must exist, that behavior seems totally appropriate to me.

The city council hires and fires the city attorney, clerk, and manager, from my understanding. The manager hires and fires the police chief. Seems clear to me that the council could hand down a do-not-enforce or at the least a lowest enforcement priority policy to the police chief (who seems like a reasonable guy from my recent breakfast with him). That would actually accomplish significant decriminalization in a fairly short order (as opposed to Fred Parsells’ suggestion of a “substantial” fine, which would continue to harm peaceful people) resulting in many Keeniacs no longer having to be afraid of being caged for enjoying recreational or medicinal cannabis consumption.

I support steps in the right direction, but there’s no reason that this can’t be done in one step. Imagine the city council people saying this to the police chief: (more…)

Keene Police Want to Hear from You!

by | Sep 12, 2009 | 5 comments

Free Keene has just uncovered an exclusive internal draft of a recent KPD press release related to an upcoming CALEA accreditation:

Public Notice

The Keene Police Department is scheduled for an on-site assessment September 13-15, 2009, as part of a program to achieve recognition by verifying that it meets professional standards. The recognition program requires agencies comply with state-of-the-art standards in four basic areas: Customer Satisfaction, Responsiveness to Citizen Requests, Solution Oriented Focus Addressing Root Causes, and Victim Restitution.

The public is encouraged to provide feedback ensuring our assessors get a complete picture of how this agency is impacting the community. Refreshments will be provided to visitors who may meet with our team during business hours this week, during the Saturday/Sunday sessions or other times by appointment. We look forward to hearing from you.

Janice Hartman, CALEA Team Lead

Okay, as you may have guessed, this is not a genuine draft of the press release. I wrote it to get you thinking about how police may be a bit  hypocritical and even delusional in their claim to protect and serve the interests of the public.

In Reality, if you want to “offer comments” you’ll need to . . . (more…)

Proof KPD Officer Knew Toplessness Not a Crime Prior to Making Arrest

by | Sep 8, 2009 | 6 comments

Peter Bowers“Without a victim, I don’t have a crime…I’m going to have to let them go.”
Peter Bowers, Officer, Keene Police Department

Bowers said this over the radio (As heard by the Keene Police Scanner) prior to entering a private cell-phone conversation with James Cemorales, the shift commander. Judging by Cemorales’ final statement in the audio, he was taking orders from Chris McLaughlin, the Keene Police’s prosecutor. Shouldn’t McLaughlin know that toplessness is legal? After all, he’s trained in reading legalese. Perhaps he knew he could kidnap Cassidy and knew there would be no consequences for him if the charges were dropped. Hopefully these guys will one day stop following immoral orders and leave peaceful people alone. I would appreciate your thoughts on this and what Cassidy should do (if anything) about her kidnapping in the comments section.

Here’s the audio from the scanner, edited for time but not content.

If only police would examine more closely whether there is a victim, we’d have a lot fewer peaceful people being arrested. For instance people possessing chemicals, plants, or playing poker have no victims…

Police Admit Toplessness is Legal in Keene!

by | Sep 8, 2009 | 17 comments

Jay DugayThanks to the Keene Sentinel’s Phil Bantz for his follow up article covering the Keene Police dropping charges against Cassidy Nicosia. Thanks also to Jay Dugay of KPD for admitting his officers were wrong. It’s rare to see that level of integrity in police departments these days. Here’s the story:

Charge dropped against teenager
Free Stater went topless in city
By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

Cassidy Nicosia, 18, of Manchester no longer faces a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure and lewdness.

Nicosia was arrested Aug. 23 after police received complaint calls about a topless teenager standing near the Main-Marlboro-Winchester streets roundabout with a handgun holstered on her hip.

State law does not require residents to have permits to openly carry guns, and she was not charged with any firearm-related crimes.

Last week, police prosecutors D. Chris McLaughlin and Eliezer Rivera decided to drop the charge of indecent exposure and lewdness against Nicosia. The charge was dropped because walking down the street topless does not qualify as a crime under state law, Keene police Lt. Jay U. Duguay said.

The law states that a person commits indecent exposure and lewdness if he or she fornicates, exposes genitals or performs any other “act of gross lewdness … likely to cause affront or alarm” in public.

“She wasn’t fornicating or exposing genitals — breasts aren’t genitals,” Duguay said. (more…)

Topless Charge Dropped!

by | Sep 3, 2009 | 74 comments

RiveraWord just came in through Porc 411 that Cassidy Nicosia’s “Indecent Exposure” charge has been dropped by KPD’s prosecutor, Eli Rivera. Does this mean the KPD is liable for false arrest, kidnapping, or official oppression? I don’t know, but I forgive them for what they’ve done and would encourage them to leave peaceful people alone in the future. Thankfully, now Cassidy doesn’t need to be concerned about being deemed a “sex offender” for acting as free as her male counterparts.

Some liberty ladies had scheduled another topless event in advance of Cassidy’s arraignment, so will that event occur or be rescheduled? I’ll let you know.

Also, here was the Ridley Report’s coverage of the topless outreach event arrest, which did not get pulled from Youtube as our original footage did: