Welcome to New Hampshire… the Live Free or Die Police State.
Welcome! You’re guilty!
Now, I’m all for gettin’ the bad guys, so don’t get me wrong as you read this post. What I’m NOT for is an ever expanding POLICE State, with growing powers of law enforcement creating an inverse shrinking of our freedom. Lately here in the Granite State, this appears to be exactly what’s happening.
First, we’ve got these paramilitary police groups called "special operations units" that have sprung up all around. These quasi-public law enforcement units, lacking the usual oversight by elected officials have, in the name of "homeland security" grown into organizations that appear to be mini-armies, complete with vehicles that resemble battle tanks. While I’m all for getting to and stopping terrorists, the fact is, there haven’t been that many here in NH, so these mini-"militias" have turned inward against the population. After all, an "army" that is fully trained for action cannot long stand still without "chafing at the bit" for something to do. It’s when they don those ski masks and head out into the night that trouble starts…
What I’m talking about, of course, is the raid on the family in Bristol by the Central NH Special Operations Unit during which innocent family members were held handcuffed in their own home for an hour and a half. Click here to read the full story of how 23 (!) "police officers" (twenty wearing masks hiding their identities) smashed down the door to the apartment in order to execute an arrest warrant for a seventeen year old family member.
And of course there’s the other botched raid in Charlestown NH by another of these so-called "special operations units" where one state trooper was shot, and a man wound up dead. While the AG called the killing "justified" (aren’t they all?), there are many questions swirling around, and even the NH State Police are questioning whether there are inherent built-in problems with these "non-profit" regional agencies that seemingly answer to nobody.
And then there’s another relatively new phenomena here in the "Live Free or Die" state: the so-called "sobriety checkpoint." The lunchroom discussion at work lately has included this topic, as there have been many in these parts– we read the "heads-up" printed in the papers… and the "results" reported after the fact. What we have found interesting in our daily chats on the subject is the fact that the "checkpoints" seem to net relatively few DWIs (which, don’t get me wrong, I want drunks OFF the roads) while yielding a number of other charges for other offenses. One news report about an area checkpoint reported that, in addition to a number of alcohol and drug arrests, drivers were charged with
operating without a valid license, child restraints, and unregistered vehicle violations as well as 11 warnings for equipment violations.
Sounds like a general sweep to me. Live Free or Die? Not hardly. And the problem is that, while some of the law enforcement persons operating these checkpoints act in a polite, efficient manner that seeks to inconvenience the innocent motorist as little as possible, others, not so. And in some instances, citizens of the "Live Free or Die State" are considered guilty of something, without cause, and must suffer the temporary loss of time and freedom, in the "hope" that, while held at the roadblock, a la Nazi style, they can somehow prove themselves innocent.
Show me zee paperz. Vat ess een your vagon? Shnell!
So it was for a ‘Grok reader that was run though the gauntlet at a checkpoint conducted by the Auburn, NH police department this past Friday evening on Route 28. What follows is the account of what happened to a 19 year old girl and her 21 year old boyfriend after they left a pleasant evening at Canobie Lake Park and headed home. "Free"? You be the judge. Innocent until proven guilty? No way.. it’s just the opposite. Here’s their story:
