According to police, the then-unknown motorcycle operator ditched the bike and ran into the woods before police were able to catch up. Fortunately for the cops, a local snitch, Alexander Short – the owner of Short’s Detailing at 58 Forest Ave in Swanzey – approached them and told officers he knew who the operator of the motorcycle was, as the two had been hanging out in the Target parking lot the same night. The snitch placed a phone call to Mikey’s cell phone and officers were then able to locate and take him into custody, ultimately returning him home to his parents’ house.
Months later, Mikey was subsequently charged with two misdemeanor counts: “disobeying an officer” and “operating without valid license”. The first count was charged as “class A”, which could result in up to a year in jail and the second count charged as “class B” which could be a large fine. The Keene Police prosecutor offered a plea deal which would have dropped the class A charge in return for his guilty plea on the class B with the punishment being a 30 day loss of license and $620 fine plus $720 suspended on condition of good behavior. Now-seventeen-year-old Mikey heroically refused the plea deal and took the charges to trial earlier this month:
After the state presented its case, Keene district court judge Patrick W Ryan took the case “under advisement” and complimented Mikey, telling him, “you did a good job”. It was Mikey’s first time in court and he appeared pro-se, defending himself without the help of an attorney.
Normally, when a robed man takes a case under advisement it is a good sign that the verdict will not be “guilty”, because usually they are hesitant to deliver a not-guilty verdict in front of an audience and cameras. Judges are likely to issue more favorable verdicts when the cameras are off and no one is around, and that is exactly what happened in this case. Actually, the charges were “dismissed” according to the case file, which means Mikey wasn’t found “not guilty”. Dismissing charges after the trial has finished is an unusual result, but it’s still a solid win for the teenage Cop Block activist.
Observers reported that the snitch Alexander Short laughed and told Mikey outside of the courtroom to “have fun in jail”. Who is laughing now? One benefit of taking charges to trial is the police have to put snitches – or any undercover agents – on the witness stand to make their case, whereas if the defendant takes a plea deal the snitch is protected from public view. So now everyone knows that Alexander Short of Swanzey New Hampshire is happy to throw his friends under the bus and rat them out to the police for victimless crimes.
KPD Officers Tim Richmond and Jake Laporte, just following orders.
For a dozen weeks, Keene police have ignored the weekly “Nightcap” events that have happened in Central Square, Fridays starting at 11:59pm. I had no reason to continue writing about the events here because they were a success – peaceful people having a quiet party in the Common, unmolested by state aggression.
Until this weekend, when the Keene police attacked in the form of ticketing everyone’s car parked around Central Square. This, while nationwide protests are calling for the defunding or outright abolition of police. In fact, just a dozen or so hours after the police targeted and littered their threats on the cars around the Square, it was filled on Saturday afternoon with hundreds of people protesting the police. Though Keene police’s chief showed up with a sign at the previous Keene Black Lives Matter event and pretended to care, it’s clearly business-as-usual for their agents on the street.
While the nationwide protests are rightfully focusing on the most egregious police abuses like the murder-by-cop or rape-by-cop, a major reason why any goodwill the cops might have had has been whittled away over decades, is their constant harassment and targeting of peaceful people for non-violent, victimless “crimes”. That’s exactly what they did on Friday night, when in search of revenue and obedience, officers Tim Richmond and new guy Jake Laporte showed up at our peaceful party.
When I noticed they had stopped in the street in front of a parked car, I walked over to see what was going on and Jake said something about enforcing a night time parking ordinance. I was not recording the scene just yet and I told him that he could go away and go find something else to do. He made a comment about just doing his job and got back into his police crusier where Tim was in the passenger seat. At that point, though there was still some hope he’d do the right thing and leave, I readied my phone to record video of the scene. Sadly he and Tim got out and began littering on the parked cars around the square.
Later the uniformed monopolists on violence claim they were ordered to enforce some “night time parking” city ordinance that allegedly prohibits parking from 2-6am in the “business district”, which they claimed was Main Street and Central Square. Then, on their last stop around the Square, Leigh, who was visiting from Manchester had gotten into his van right before they rolled up behind him. Because he didn’t leave quick enough, despite being in the process of leaving, the officers pulled up to block him from leaving at all and issued their final $15 ticket before leaving the area. Here’s the video:
Stay tuned to Free Keene to see what we do with the multiple tickets issued.
Massive crowd watching speakers at BLM event in Keene.
Finally, average people are showing concern for police violence! It only took thousands of innocent bodies piled up over many years and countless millions of peaceful people arrested for victimless crimes before enough people got mad enough to do something. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops who brazenly choked him to death for several minutes while being recorded on video as Floyd tried to plead with the gang of killers and alert them that he could not breathe.
However, what happened to Floyd was the spark that lit a flame – literally, with large numbers of people coming out from their homes to join in protests demanding police accountability and railing against police violence, which is used more often against blacks, but affects all of the human race. The protestors even torched the Minneapolis third precinct station after police abandoned the property after days of protests outside, which was an amazing victory and was refreshing to see the people’s understandable anger targeted where it was actually deserved.
KPD’s Cristina Paterno and Cheshire Sheriff Eli Rivera hear you, but will they listen and change?
Sadly, some protests have also been sullied by violence committed against people and the destruction of private property in many cities. The destruction of innocent-owned private property has been significant and tragic. However, New Hampshire has thankfully avoided these losses, likely because people here are much more free to defend their property from attackers, with weapons if necessary. The people who are targeting private property are unwelcome among the peaceful protestors and are likely a mix of police acting as agents-provocateur and opportunists who are looking to destroy and/or steal.
Today in Keene, several hundred people gathered in Central Square at 4pm today for a Black Lives Matter protest that rivaled the BLM event from Manchester, NH on Saturday. After nearly fifteen years in Keene, I’ve never seen anything this big in Central Square, ever. Today’s event was probably 4-5 times larger than the biggest 420 rallies in Central Square more than a decade ago.
Large crowd in Keene kneels, fist up.
The honking from drivers was nearly non-stop including multiple large trucks and tractor trailers laying on their horns to cheers from the excited crowd. Keene’s police chief Steven Russo and Cheshire County’s sheriff Eli Rivera were both present in the heart of the park holding signs saying, “We hear you” and taking pictures with people. To their credit, this was a smart move. By physically joining the protestors, the police acting like humans can diffuse anger and deescalate tensions. However, talk is cheap, and “hearing” isn’t the same as “listening”, and it’s certainly not actually changing their behavior.
Will the Keene police stop arresting peaceful people for victimless crimes? It’s the insane war on drugs and other prohibitions that have resulted in people of all shapes and sizes and colors being attacked, imprisoned, and murdered by police nationwide for decades. Keene’s police have made a myriad of drug busts and assisted the DEA in raiding a popular local head shop on Main Street several years ago. A stroll through past posts here at Keene Cop Block shows just a fraction of the lives the local police have ruined in the name of their authoritarian prohibitions. Are they going to now see how they harmed their brothers and sisters, issue an apology, change their ways and send back the BEARCAT armored tank to its manufacturer?
I sure hope so, for their sake, but then again, I’m an optimist.
Over the last several days the video and story about Keene High’s “school resource officer” Joshua English attacking and tackling a student for allegedly vaping in the school’s bathroom, has gone viral. However, there’s more to the story than cop-attacks-teen, though this incident alone is bad enough. In case you haven’t heard about this incident, according to other students the young man who was viciously attacked by English was vaping in the bathroom and English confronted him. The student heroically refused to identify himself to the armed, intimidating, uniformed man and walked out of the bathroom. Moments later, English bursted out of the bathroom and tackled the peaceful student, subduing him with a shocking level of force.
Thankfully, another brave student pulled out their phone upon hearing a commotion from inside the bathroom and captured the entire tackling on video:
Understandably many are outraged at the officer’s use of force over a simple vaping incident, but that’s not really what caused English to fly into a violent rage. The young victim’s real crime was disobedience. The youth had the gall to act as though he were a free man, walking away from a threatening, potentially violent anti-nicotine nuisance and attempting to go about his day. English has his “authority” to worry about and can’t possibly be seen by others as someone who one could just walk away from without consequence, so he used violence to dominate the young man in front of a crowd of people.
Keene Police have been making headlines nationwide for proclaiming that English was fully within police guidelines for his use of force against the “subject” – yes, that’s actually how they refer to the rest of us non-gang members. Keene police chief Steve Russo exonerated English in a recent release, saying his agent had not violated any department guidelines or state statutes, but Russo said further that English was worried the young man was a potential trespasser, claiming to the Union Leader, “At that point, he didn’t even know he was a student”.
Keene Police Officer Joshua English
Perhaps English needs to have his memory tested. While it would certainly be hard to remember previously seeing one random male in a school with over one thousand students, how could English forget that he’d written the same young man a ticket for “possessing tobacco products” two weeks prior? The student’s father showed the proof of this claim to WHDH-TV in Boston.
While Keene Police are trying to make English look like a hero protecting the school from a potential intruder, the reality is much different. In KPD’s official release, they claim the Keene Police and the school district are, “committed to maintaining the safety and security of the students…which may regrettably include when necessary, the use of force to secure that safety.” There were no allegations the young victim was doing anything violent. He was allegedly vaping in the bathroom. No one was threatened by the young man. The only dangerous, violent threat in Keene High School that day was Keene Police’s Joshua English. Who is he?
Don’t expect the mainstream media to do a modicum of digging about English. Otherwise you might have already discovered English shot a man to death in Keene back in 2010. Free Keene blogger and former police officer Brad Jardis covered the story here when English was found to be within the state’s use-of-force guidelines in the shooting incident. In that case, the man who was shot by English was holding a knife to a woman’s throat, so our blogger Jardis agreed with the shooting as necessary. However, is it really the best decision to assign one of the only officers at KPD who has violently taken another human being’s life the duty of being the high school’s cop? (more…)
Man takes highly dangerous selfie in front of SWAT team – the mask was added later to protect his identity.
After resigning from his job at Eversource over being sexually harassed and going through a difficult breakup with his girlfriend, a local man was having a mental breakdown in early November inside his own home in Keene, New Hampshire. The man has asked to have his real name protected, so I will refer to him in this story as “NBR”. Running on very little sleep, stressed from losing his job and relationship, and dealing with an undiagnosed mental disorder, NBR was alone in his house and had been throwing his possessions out the window.
According to NBR, when his parents, who love their son dearly, heard about his behavior they were quite concerned for his safety and well-being. They called to have him involuntarily committed so he could get the help and treatment he desperately needed at the time. Or, so they thought.
Unfortunately, then Keene police showed up and took things from bad to worse by responding to the mentally ill man with every cop in the vicinity, plus state police. One neighbor reported counting at least eleven police cruisers on the scene. It was a huge show of force considering NBR has no history of violence, nor had he threatened anybody. In fact, NBR was not charged by the police on the night in question with any crimes whatsoever. The police took him into custody without incident and delivered him to the Cheshire Medical Center to begin his involuntary commitment. There was no legitimate reason for such a large police response.
There was also no reason for several armed men with at least one laser-sighted assault rifle and two full-body shields to break down his front door and terrorize NBR. Though he expressed to the officers that he just wanted to go to sleep, he told me he did not resist their arrest.
The video and photo he took during the break-in by Keene Police, who broke down his front door, is stunning, terrifying, and just sad. In the video, at least one laser-sighted assault rifle is pointed at NBR as police demand he put down the phone in his hand. He makes it clear he is recording, thankfully not being shot to death for holding his phone. People have been killed by police in other jurisdictions when police claimed they thought the phone was a gun. NBR even managed to take an intense picture of the event to share with the world to show how dangerous the police can be and how unnecessary their actions were.
Does anyone actually belive this level of force by the Keene Police Department was appropriate or justified in any way? While it was extremely risky, thankfully NBR recorded the situation so it could be shared with others. It is a terrifying view of the police state on display, in a completely and clearly excessive response to an all-too common situation. Police operating policies and procedures should be changed to prevent this from happening again in the future.
Mental illness is a weak point in the Non Aggression Principle, which is the principle that defines libertarianism. Clearly in a society with no coercive state, something would need to be done about someone who has lost their mind and has become a danger to himself or others, and that something will usually involve some level of aggression. However, an involuntary commitment process should not involve men with assault rifles, shields, and overwhelming force unless the person is actually putting people in danger. In this case, NBR was simply having a breakdown in his own home. He was not a danger to himself or others, he did not threaten others, and he did everything the officers ordered him to do without incident. (more…)
