Friday April 27, 2012 at approximately 2:15PM, I parked my vehicle on Main Street and ran into the bank. Less than five minutes later, I exited the bank to find a parking ticket on my windshield.
Today, Cecelia and I went to the Keene Police Department where I stated my desire to contest the ticket. As the vehicle is registered under the name of another individual, I was told that I am not allowed to contest the ticket. According to the woman behind the counter and the officer she sent out to speak with me, my three options were: Ask my father to take time away from work to contest a parking ticket that is not his responsibility and that he would not be able to make an argument for because it stems from a situation he knows nothing about, let them coerce my dad into paying them with threats of stealing the vehicle, or pay the ticket.
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Today, May 1, 2012 at 9:30am I signed a plea deal. Attached below are scanned copies of the terms. The long and short of it is that I will be going to jail for 60-115 days, starting May 7th at 4:20pm. Even though it will be a tough experience, I feel a sense of relief because I have certainty whereas I had none before.
I was facing 4 trials, with charges collectively totaling about 9 years in jail. Even if I were found not guilty by a jury in each case, I would still serve about 80 days jail time in fines. This is essentially a time-saver. It’s like a bully is forcing me to choose between the unattractive options of being kicked in the shins today or being knocked out sometime in the next year. By signing the plea deal, I’m mitigating my potential exposure to further harm.
Hindsight is 20/20, and while I’ve taken note of my mistakes, I don’t regret my actions because they were always totally peaceful. No one is alleging that I have harmed anybody or damaged any property. The past year in Keene has been an invaluable learning experience, and I’d prefer to take a hit for living free than to allow paralyzing fear to cause inaction.
Today the FBI celebrated May Day its own way with the arrests of five individuals who the bureau’s spokesman described as “self-described anarchists”. According to the feds, three of the five men arrested were directly involved in a plot to detonate a four-lane highway bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. They planted what they thought were explosives, went to a location outside of the blast radius, and tried to activate the bombs. An arrest warrant had already been signed before the men even made their way to the site. They had been duped in a typical sting operation in which they are given inert material under the guise that they are explosives to be used for a specific operation, and they are busted when they go about completing the task. While the facts have not yet fully emerged from the events of today, we are to rest assured that the year-long plotting and faux-terrorism incident was under complete investigatory quality control from the brightest minds in law enforcement. Whether the co-conspirator and source of the (non)explosives was an undercover federal agent or a confidential informant, it sounds as if the would-be terrorists were more specifically aiding the plot of another. (more…)
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.
You can download the edition for this week here. Topics covered include the 420 on 4/20 at the state house and NH drug task force officer Jason Short seeing the irony in his use of nicotine.
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The Concord Monitor’s Felice Belman writes on her blog from the newspaper’s website that the Concord police have stopped including narratives of the events surrounding an arrest in releases to the press. Recently, they began only including the name and charges against an individual who has been seized by their organization. This is to have stemmed from complaints filed by an attorney on behalf of city councilor Fred Keach, who was arrested for attempting to drive while intoxicated in October 2010. Keach was unhappy with the amount of detail provided by the police in the account of the arrest as published in the Monitor.
The article also overviews that a statutory change pending in the NH legislature will specify the amount of information to be released by police following an arrest. It is hard to imagine anyone would support a more secretive local police force that didn’t work for the police or prosecutor’s office. In case you may be curious as to what a typical arrest narrative given to a defendant would look like, here’s a scan of the report I received with my discovery packet from the Chalking 8 trial.
Radio Free Keene News is a five minute newscast which is available as 
