Abuse of Police Power Within The Hinsdale NH Police Department

Update Dec 28

Is it good the selectman didn't call yet? 

Comments To Me From The Police Chief 

"Even if this wasn't according to the ordinance, I could have towed your car and ticketed you on at least "six" state laws."

"If the department was really after you, we could have ticketed and towed your car. It would have really cost you then."

The nice police officer just came to my house and asked me to move my car, or be towed? right.

Update

The selectman's office

So I give the office secretary my shortened spiel. The first thing she implied in this it is a police matter. The first thing the police chief said in the police station window to me is, this is a selectman's issue. Freakin bureaucrats? 

I posed the question to the selectman secretary as succinctly as I could. She was by now taking notes. She asked me if I looked up the ordinance. I said four times, one reading it real slowly. She had opened up her computer to the snow emergency plowing/towing ordinance. She read the ordnance for two or three minutes. I popped up saying, "just show me where it clearly states the police can tow or ticket cars in a snow emergency during the daylight hours between 6 am and midnight"? I am sure she felt she could show me the wording quickly. Then I get a, "well, I will have to take this to the selectman. She never admitted to me she couldn't find the wording, just like the police chief. I hate this excessive organizational self protection. That is when I tell her my blog address. I am a blogger!. Told the secretary, "This is my interpretation and analysis of events here". I wrote it up on my blog so the selectman could know clearly in writing what I was  thinking.  

It is very risky me going off on an events and interpreting rules and ordinances like this without all my ducks in a row. This all is basically a information gather tacit and engaging the organization to starting thinking about my issue. I find it very painful to me when police come to my door with their duck not in a row. I might miss a few words or misinterpret a rule or laws. I have little training and contacts with these systems. I got a big chance I might be wrong. Especially the police chief, he has tremendous legal training and experience with the system, as with the regular police and selectmen people. 

My impression with the selectman's secretary, she couldn't find the clear wording saying the police have the political authority to ticket or tow cars in a snow emergency. 

I think the best way to handle this is just to ask the car owners to take their cars off the road for the good of the community and help the plow drivers. I think 99% of the community population would do as the police wanted. Why does the police always go to the intimidation route? 

I just wanted to talk abothe beyond ut this with the police. I want him to sit down with me and go over the ordinance word by word. I wanted the police to be more commutative to outsiders and explain how they operate. I though he was dismissive when he said, if I find something wrong with the ordnance, I will change it. It wasn't, we will then talk more about your concerns. These guys are always minimizing their profile. I just want communications, openness and transparency with the police. I want the police to know me, and me to know the police...we trust each other when the shit hits the fan. This applies to everyone(not just the police)in my community and the beyond in the USA. These police have always been overwhelmed with crime problems and severely poor public funding.        

Update Dec 27

My issue was our elected officials dictated by ordinance cars can only be towed during a storm and between the midnight and 6am.That is the way the rules are written according to my interpretation. He said even if we are outside the town rules, we got at least five state laws where we can ticket and tow your car parked on the side of the road. I asked him, did you read the ordinance? He gave me a weak yes. He promised me he would take a look at the rules. If he finds the rules unclear, he will get it changed. I was disappointed he didn't say, he would get back to me and we can have a further talk about it. There are bigger implications here. As far as all the state laws he could have used in this particular case, yea they maybe there, but the prosecutor and judge would laugh them out of court.   

Why don't the police officers have pre season training on it? If I am right, why didn't a police officer speak up saying the ordinance don't give us a right to tow cars during daylight. It not right threatened emediately we will tow you car, when we don't have a right to do that. By the way, the chiefs first swipe at this was, it is the way we always worked in the winter. Why didn't a cop say, we got to clear up the ordnance, or I won't participate with unethically towing strategy.       

I extensively questioned my wife about the tone of the police officer and who he was? My wife picked up my troublesome vibes...she didn't want me to get in trouble again with the police department. We talked at length with the our interpretation of this encounter. Was the cops picking on me and were they professional? By the end of the ride home, we concluded this was a innocent occurrence and I was a bit paranoid. The cop was just doing his job and no harm what so ever. I have a abnormal curiosity, so I decided to just check our  the  snow ordinance.  I concluded our elected politicians only allowed towing cars and fines during the night. The implication are bigger than me, what if i am right? What do they owe to the people who got their cars towed or fined with this unauthorized police activity? 

You want people like me pinging on the police department and always testing them, making them stronger...           

Update:

When My wife called to notify me of the police visit, my wife and son emediately picked up the car and brought it back home.

It is Christmas Today. I got a beautiful new heavy duty winter coat. I spend an enormous amount time in the woods and trails in our area. I use a mountain bike and hike. I got diabetes...this is my exercise to counteracts my disease. But it is much more than that. I consider being next to our locale nature and weather as a spiritual or religious experience. Being out their exhausting myself calms me for days. As far as a winter experience, out there in a raging snowstorm or blizzard...I feel there is no better spiritual experience anywhere. It is so freeing out there being isolated from the societal experience. I have been traipsing out in these winter storms for many years now. I am usually out in the woods for six to eight hours. I always have a cell phone with me for safety. I gotten bumps and scraps out there, but no big accident. I am pretty conservative with my safety, I don't want to get hurt out there to keep me from my biking and hiking for any time.

So today I am parked (car) on the Taryn Ln entrance to the power lines trails and snowmobiling area. I have been hiking for about hour. I get a cell phone call from my wife. She says the Hinsdale cops just came to the door. The cop says, "your husband's car is impeding snowplowing". "If he doesn't get his car off the road emediately he is going to get towed". The cop irked said, "He has been warned about this many times before". His tone was very polite to my wife and he wished her merry Christmas.

This call happen about 2pm. But I call it a gross misuse of police power and intimidation. Clearly, according to the Hinsdale ordinances, he had no police power to tell me to get off the road or to tow my car. It is not plausible he doesn't understand the winter emergency towing/ plowing ordinances. My best guess is the police department just takes the lazy and most effective way out, just unjustly threatens his poor citizens with a $200 towing fine. It is outside the court's punishment type a thing.

As far as the storm plowing philosophy, I think it goes like this. You keep the roads open plowing during the daylight hours. You don't do really detailed plowing. During the first or second night after the storm, you go back over all the roads doing the detail plowing. This is when they should catch the area of snow buildup area around where I parked my hour. The priority is not disrupt the public interest, recreation or business interest during the storm. The storm does enough damage on their own.

So my big question is how many cars have you towed for the last five years during a winter storm not ordinance authorized period of midnight to 6am. It is a illegal action.

I am really irked the cops are passing around bogus information  concerning me... I am a snowstorm emergency habitual parking on the side of road ordinance violator. It is not based on any law or ordinance. I am appalled the police doesn't understand this.

2016

***Accosted be Ex Chief Gallagher in 2016. He was acting as a town selectman chairman and police officer within this encounter simultaneously. 

Taryn Ln is deep in a small neighborhood. It doesn't have a lot of traffic. It is in a isolated section of the road, 

1) About noontime. The same place as above on Taryn Ln road near the power line as in today's encounter above. I was basically plowed in and stuck in the snow as the same place as today on the side of the road. It was in one mother of a blizzard. I was shoveling out my car in a stuck condition. Gallagher stopped and got out. I was just about shoveled out. I told him I had been hiking out in the woods. I got in my car and it came right out from the snow bank. I took this first encounter as a good police officer just trying to be helpful to his citizen. Rather impressed you know.

2) Same storm...about six hours later. I was hiking in and around the area of the Vernon Dam of cource on the Hinsdale side. It was the worst  blizzard of 2016. The wind was howling and it was still snowing hard as hell. About 4:30 pm. It was a raging storm all day. I didn't want to get stuck in the storm again, so I parked aside the sewer plant on River road. I am walking about 500 feet before my car when I see a police car ahead of me. I am tired as hell, the snow was still raging and the wind was howling. Gallagher asked me, "what are you doing here? Said hiking up by the dam all afternoon. It was the ending of a spectacular blizzard day. He replied irked, "you are interfering with town plowing operations". I didn't want to create any scenes there. I just said OK. Lets just say, Gallagher was the selectman chairman when I was protesting about the Hinsdale/ Brattleboro dilapidated bridge, and my arrest. I had made a complaint to the selectman that the police department wasn't getting adequately funded and manned in this timeframe. So you see, we had issues.

So far, I don't think this is related to the bridge protest, my arrest or my police complaint... It is too far in the past. But these small NE town's people have a reputation of never letting go of a grudge...

 

Ordinances & Regulations

TRAFFIC CONTROL OR..DINANCE

AUTHORITY

In accordance with an under the authority of the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated, Chapter 41, Section 11 and Chapter 47, Section 17, VII and VIII, authorizing the Board of Selectmen to enact ordinances governing the use of public ways and traffic devises and signals, the following Ordinance is adopted by the Board of Selectmen of the Town of Hinsdale.  This ordinance repeals and replaces the Parking Ordinance.

III. Between November 1st and April 1st from 12:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M., no vehicle shall be parked beyond the boundaries of the public way within the Town so that it interferes with the removal of snow from the highways and parking lots.  This shall not apply to vehicles parked in designated areas except between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.  However, the Historical Society lot shall be designated as an overnight lot for emergency purposes only and vehicles must be removed by 7:00 a.m.

I generally park off the tar on the side of the road or as close to the snow bank as possible.   

V. Any vehicle parked contrary to this ordinance may be towed at the owners’ expense, in the following manner: A. Any Police Officer may authorize towing for any violations of this ordinance.  

B. The Supervisor of the Hinsdale Highway Department or his designee may order vehicles towed for violations of Section III when said violator is impeding the plowing or removal of snow.

C. Any person(s) whose vehicle is towed pursuant to this ordinance shall be liable for all costs of such towing and storage, but shall have a right to a hearing upon the same terms and conditions as set forth in RSA 262:33 II and III.