Sobriety Shakedown Friday Night

[TackleTheWorld]

Yesterday's manchester daily express has the sobriety checkpoint story on the front page, an interview with Dave R. too.

Dang it, me and my sign can't make it into town tonight.  But if anyone is in the vicinity of Elm St. between Bridge and Queen City later this evening. You can call into porc 413-0411 with the location of the roadblock and I will alert bartenders in the area.

[J’raxis 270145]

Do we have an approximate time for this? I assume it'll be around when the bars empty out; I think the last one was 00:00–02:00. I'm not going to go stand out there protesting this alone, but I'll go reconnoiter Elm St. and call in whatever I find.

[TackleTheWorld]

Porc411 call from Johnny(?) says the sobriety checkpoint is on the bridge st. bridge in Manchester.  Called 10 bars with the alert.   Hope no one gets kidnapped by the highwaymen tonight.

[J’raxis 270145]

That was me.

There were four checkpoints set up, one in each direction on both the Bridge St. bridge and Queen City Ave. bridge. In both cases they seemed to be trying to take advantage of the lay of the road to make it impossible to avoid—the curvature of the bridge hides the checkpoint on your side of the road until you're traveling down the one-way side of the bridge with an island in between you and the other lane. So much for the nonsense in the Manchester Express about them giving people opportunity to turn around in order to avoid the checkpoints.

They were also patrolling Elm St. quite a bit, although I'm not sure if that's related or the usual; there are always a lot of cops in Manchester doing nothing other than driving up and down Elm St.. I guess this is why the city government thinks we need more police—the ones we have seem to all be busy driving in circles. Up and down Elm St., I saw a handful of marked cruisers, one of their marked SUVs, and also a white late-model Chevy, unmarked, with a standard civilian license plate, 789 ****. (The only reason I know this one was a police car is because it was in the process of stopping someone, lights flashing, as I walked past it.)

All of the other streets off of Elm St. appeared to be clear, so people should know in the future to use those to route around the Polizeiprüfpunkte.

Some dude coming out of a bar shouted, "Yeah! Fuck the system!" as I walked past him—I'm not sure what that was all about, since other than having my FSP pin on my jacket, I was doing nothing overtly noticeable.

We can also thank Manchester's finest for causing at least one car accident: When crossing back over the Bridge St. bridge, eastbound, there was a car that had skidded through the checkpoint and slammed into the guard rail, pretty thoroughly crushing the front of the car and blowing the airbags. It didn't look like anyone had been hurt fortunately. Presumably the driver skidded on the snow and ice all over the road out there tonight when trying to stop suddenly for the checkpoint. Or perhaps he actually was drunk, but only got into an accident as a result of suddenly coming upon four police cars, lights flashing, and half a dozen men standing in the street waving at people.

[TackleTheWorld]

Wow, excellent work, Jeremy.
Thanks for the first-hand reports.

[Porcupine Realtor]

Good job, Jeremy and Lauren!  I love the idea of contacting bar owners.  I wonder if we can get one of the FM rock stations to also announce the 5th Amendment violations over the air when we discover them.

A casual reader of the news would think that drunk drivers are the most dangerous, evil wrongdoers in the city by the amount of resources thrown at them.  Oh, and parking meter violators too, of course.

Note to burglars, arsonists, assaulters:  the best time to commit your crimes is when the cops are hosting a traffic-stopping party on the other side of town.

[firecracker joe]

so let me get this straight they sell you the liquor on the highway and then set up their nazis on the corner to arrest you and wreck your life cause you drank the booze they sold you.
leave it to the state. Next thing you know they'll be selling scratch tickets  and arrest you when you try to collect .
what a fucking joke the system is. Everyone trying to get rich off the little guy who's barely surviving.
good job jeremy, thanx for the info. this is why i stay home.

[ReverendRyan]

so let me get this straight they sell you the liquor on the highway and then set up their nazis on the corner to arrest you and wreck your life cause you drank the booze they sold you.

[d_goddard]

I wonder if we can get one of the FM rock stations to also announce the 5th Amendment violations over the air when we discover them.

... brilliant!!

[J’raxis 270145]

Tomorrow is the public participation meeting at City Hall, at 19:00. Anyone in Manchester want to come speak against this stupid checkpoint?

The special budget proposal meeting was held tonight, and Guinta wants to raise the police budget by 4%. (The rest of his budget was decent—he's cutting public school funding, considering enrollment has dropped 10%, and he's actually working around a $13M revenue shortfall without raising taxes... but raising the police budget when it's clear they already have too much free time on their hands is insane.)

I'm going to be there to speak in favor of the good points on this budget, and might mention the checkpoint, but it would be ideal to split up concerns so each speaker concentrates on one issue.

[d_goddard]

Might be worth posting the City Hall meeting on the politically-oriented forum...

[J’raxis 270145]

Done. Although since this is more protesting some stupidassery done by the city, than trying to rally people to vote against it, I thought it was worth mentioning here, too.

[J’raxis 270145]

Here's the police press release about the checkpoint, including their explanation of the accident that happened. The blanks are the names and addresses of the three people they arrested, which I removed because I see no need for such information to be publicized:—

City of Manchester
Police Department
Ralph Miller Public Safety Center
351 Chestnut Street Manchester, New Hampshire 03101-2294
(603) 668-8711 Business Phone
(603) 668-8941 Main Fax
(603) 628-6137 Administrative Offices Fax
John A. Jaskolka
Chief
A NATIONALLY ACCREDITED LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY
Internet: manchesterpd.com
E-mail: MPD@ci.manchester.nh.us

DATE OF RELEASE
Monday, March 31, 2008

SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT NETS 106 STOPS, THREE DWI ARRESTS

On Friday evening, 03-28-08, the Manchester Police Department conducted a sobriety checkpoint on the westbound span of the Bridge St Bridge. Officers at the checkpoint conducted 106 motor vehicle stops, resulting in the issuance of four summonses and three warnings for motor vehicle violations. There were also three drivers arrested on DWI charges.

On 03-28-08 at 11:25 PM, a vehicle stopped at the checkpoint was operated by:
********
********
********
Goffstown, NH

Based on further investigation during this stop, ***** was placed under arrest for OUIL.

On 03-29-08 at about 12:45 AM, officers at the checkpoint spotted a vehicle going eastbound over the bridge St Bridge. The officers noted the vehicle accelerating rapidly as it proceeded easterly across the bridge and estimated its speed at approximately 70 mph.

An officer at the checkpoint got into a cruiser and followed after the vehicle, finding it crashed into a guard rail at the east end of the bridge at the off-ramp to Spring St. The driver was identified as:

********
********
********
City of Manchester

Based on further investigation by officers, ***** was placed under arrest and charged with Aggravated OUIL.

On 03-29-08 at 1:15 AM, another vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint and the driver identified as:

********
********
********
City of Manchester

Based on further investigation by officers, ***** was placed under arrest and charged with OUIL.

[dalebert]

Guinta wants to raise the police budget by 4%.

Typical conservative.

[J’raxis 270145]

Guinta wants to raise the police budget by 4%.

Typical conservative.

Apparently the Manchester PD endorsed Guinta, so now he's returning the favor.