Open Government

Eight years ago today: press conference to decry the government’s militarization of our local police. They now also have encrypted secret communications, making law abiding citizens less safe, and have added drones to their arsenal. They used BEARCATS and ramming rods and drones to attack peaceful activists in Keene earlier this year… As our freedoms are crushed under the boot of the emerging police state, and as they lay claim to your body and say they can force you to do things against your will, remember the people who have been warning you for more than a decade AND offering solutions: Free Staters like me!

Nothing screams INTEGRITY like Sununu’s proposed appointment of a judge, Patricia Conway, who in 2015 was involved in having her husband removed from the Laurie’s List, followed by a firing of the whistleblower who made that public, which then lead to a $80,000 settlement that taxpayers had to foot. But it seems entirely plausible, that, as they claimed at the time, the removal of her husband from the secret list of bad cops was like, totes, “an error.”

But y’all keep believing this cabal in 2021 when they say, “So we must avoid an approach that is primarily punitive in nature, but rather is supportive and transparent with clear consequences for bad actors. No good officer wants to work with a bad officer, not one.” (From today’s Union Leader op-ed, “We are all in this together” by Charlie Dennis, Mark Morrison, and Marc Beaudoin.)

If ya’ll are “good cops,” trying to “put your best foot forward,” why HAS NO ONE LEAKED THE LAURIE’S LIST? Why do you always testify AGAINST ANY REFORM measures? Y’all are, if you’ll pardon my French: Full. Of. Shit.

Over the course of the past six years, various “police accountability/we’ll do better, we promise, just don’t change anything” commissions, including the most recent 2020 LEACT Commission, made recommendations, none of which actually go anywhere.

And, if you don’t think there’s a problem in NH, did you know in 2017, 25% OF ALL HOMICIDES WERE COPS KILLING CITIZENS? I haven’t run the numbers for 2020 yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be another bumper “justified killing” year! Justified, even when shooting fleeing people in the back.

In the meanwhile, two court decisions including one from the NH Supreme Court last year, have said to release the FULL Laurie’s List, without the redactions that shocked thousands of Granite Staters when it was printed in the Union Leader a few weeks ago. WHERE IS THE LIST, SO-CALLED “GOOD COPS” AND PROSECUTORS?

What can we do?

The best defense citizens have at this stage is to END QUALIFIED IMMUNITY, which is basically a cop’s personal “get out of jail free” card. Know how you’re told “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” well, get this, for the enforcers of the law, IT IS AN ABSOLUTE DEFENSE. Yup, they are held to a LOWER standard than the rest of us. No kidding!

Your legislators will be voting on HB 111 to END qualified immunity sometime over the next 3 days. I’ve heard due to support from liberty folks and Democrats, it will pass the House. We then need to keep the pressure on the Senate. Stay tuned!