To the Editor:
Recently I appeared at the Lebanon District Court for reasons I would rather not discuss here. During my visit to the court, I sat next to three young men who I soon learned from their conversation were Hanover Police officers. While the three officers waited to testify in an upcoming hearing, they talked about recent arrests they had made and cases on which they had been working. Although most of their conversation was of little interest to me, I suddenly perked up when I heard them talk about patrolling the Dartmouth campus. They joked about how "cool" it was that they had recently been given greater authority to pick up, detain and arrest Dartmouth students. They talked about how "cool" it was that they could go undercover at Stinson's and Webster Avenue in order to catch more Dartmouth students.
Needless to say, this type of talk angered me greatly. However, my anger increased after witnessing some of the cases brought before the judge. The first defendant was a young boy, around 12, who had been arrested by Hanover Police for skateboarding in front of Foodstop. The judge fined the boy the maximum amount allowed by New Hampshire state law. The next defendant was a middle-aged man who worked for FO&M. The man had accidentally crashed a college-owned truck into a building on campus that caused minimal damage. The man fled the scene fearing that he would be fired if the College found out about the crash and that he would not be able to provide for his wife and two children. When Hanover Police contacted him about the accident, he lied and told them that the truck had been damaged in a hit-and-run while parked. Feeling remorse for lying and urged by his wife, the man called Hanover Police about a week later and confessed to crashing the truck. Hanover Police promptly arrested the man and confiscated his vehicle. The judge fined the man close to the maximum amount allowed by New Hampshire state-law.
I feel that the things I witnessed during my trip to the Lebanon District court fully explicate the recent egregious misconduct of the Hanover Police department in particular and the New Hampshire court system in general.
Ilya Feoktistov's piece "H-Po in Excess" (The Dartmouth, Aug. 5) addresses an important issue that the Dartmouth community should not ignore any longer. While I understand that the Hanover police department provides a necessary and valuable service for the community, I believe that the "overzealousness" that Feoktistov describes of the officers is out of control. I also believe that this type of "overzealousness" is not particular to the Hanover police department. The Lebanon District Court judge and whatever fascist legislative body that passed the internal possession law are just as guilty. Although I am at a loss as to what should be done to rectify the situation I do know that Feoktistov is spot on when he says that the "Hanover police department routinely and consciously overreaches its authority." I would only add that this problem is not limited to the Hanover Police.
