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The Dartmouth
July 11, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Students offer perceptions of police

 

 

Nothing seems out of the ordinary in the Hanover Police Department. Yet in a garage at the back of the building rests a charred pong table -- the result of the recent fire at Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity -- a clear sign that Hanover is very much a college town and that the police regularly interact with students, both at the College and at Hanover High School.

Many of these students, in interviews with The Dartmouth, said they believe the police are often inappropriately aggressive and unfairly target young people.

Police Chief Nicholas Giaccone disagreed.

"We try to be consistent in how we apply the law, and it's regardless of whether someone is a high school student or a college student," he said.

Giaccone is also one of several area police chiefs who oppose College President James Wright's position on the drinking age -- namely, that it should be lowered from 21.

POLICE PERSPECTIVES

Interaction between students and Hanover Police is inevitable, and Giaccone said his department tries to be as fair as possible.

Many Dartmouth and Hanover High School students interviewed by The Dartmouth painted a different picture, saying that students are routinely targeted by the police.

"Usually, their attitude towards students is, in general, not good," Hanover High School senior Kasey Ng said. "They're trying to get us for things that are not necessary to get. They're expecting us all to mess up."

Ng noted, however, that this criticism does not pertain to all of the officers -- certain officers, she said, treat students fairly.

A female member of Dartmouth's Class of 2011, who also attended Hanover High and wished to remain anonymous to avoid straining any future relations with the police, said that Hanover officers focus aggressively on Dartmouth and Hanover High students.

The student detailed one incident in which she was stopped with a group of friends for jaywalking near the Hanover Co-op supermarket on South Park Street.

"[Hanover Police] just sat in the Co-op parking lot and gave students written warnings for jaywalking to the Co-op," she said.

She also recalled that Hanover Police had set up a hot line that Hanover High students and parents could use to "rat out" peers hosting house parties.

"It was pretty sick, actually," the student said. "They go out of their way to get students in trouble, and I think most students feel that way."

The student added that Dartmouth students may be more insulated from the police than Hanover High students because Safety and Security handles most on-campus incidents.

"I don't have any friends who have run into trouble with [Hanover Police] who go here," she said.

Hanover town manager Julia Griffin said that the Hanover Police Department is less "militaristic" than the police force in Concord, N.H., where she served as city manager from 1992 to 1996. She acknowledged, though, that Concord is a much larger city than Hanover.

"[Giaccone is] a very dedicated, hardworking police chief with a real human side to him that not all folks tend to see in police chiefs, very accessible," she said. "Not the kind of guy who hides behind a uniform."

The Hanover police force is only performing its job in its interactions with students and residents, Griffin said.

"In Hanover, as long as you're law abiding, you're all set," she said.

Dealing with citizens who break the law is a "challenge for any community," Griffin said, adding that Hanover's "department is certainly very observant."

Dean of the College Tom Crady was tempered in his assessment of the police force in an interview with The Dartmouth.

"I have not spent a lot of time with them, but it's been fine," he said.

Crady added that he has met with Giaccone only once since he assumed his current position at the College about a year and a half ago. He noted that he was closer with the police at Grinnell College, where he served as vice president of student services, but added that the Iowa college is located in a smaller community than Hanover.

AMBULANCE ESCORTS

Certain College students interviewed by The Dartmouth said the threat of arrest often deters students from calling for medical assistance. As Hanover police officers usually escort Hanover Fire Department ambulances on calls, intoxicated students who require transportation to the hospital are often arrested.

"Students do hesitate to use [the Good Samaritan] Policy in fear," College Democrats issue advocacy director Deanna Portero '12 said. "Friends say, 'Never call me for a Good Sam. I'd be so angry.'"

Dartmouth instituted the current version of its Good Samaritan Policy in 2005, but the policy has existed since 1988. The Good Sam Policy allows an intoxicated student or that student's concerned friend to call Safety and Security and, with no questions asked and no disciplinary ramifications from the College, receive a medical response. Students deemed to be in severe medical danger are brought to DHMC, and the police can become involved.

The policy offers students no protection from arrest by Hanover Police in this event.

"Our actions sort of fly in the face of what the students think the Good Sam Policy is there for," Giaccone said.

Crady said that New Hampshire's internal possession law is the real cause for concern.

"It's a policy that I worry about, that students won't come forward if they're intoxicated," he said.

Crady said he does not believe that the Hanover Police significantly affect drinking on campus, pointing to the work of Safety and Security as having a larger impact.

Griffin emphasized that current police procedures, including ambulance escorts, are needed to limit liability and allow for the fastest response time possible for emergency personnel.

"We've had enough incidents of paramedics being roughed up by Dartmouth students in the back of an ambulance," Griffin said. "This is what I really struggle with."

THE DRINKING AGE

Wright made headlines in 2008 when he signed a petition -- part of the Amethyst Initiative -- calling for the drinking age to be lowered. Wright is the only Ivy League president to have signed the document, the brainchild of former Middlebury College President John McCardell.

"Young women and men who are old enough to vote and serve their country in the military should be considered old enough to drink," College spokesman Roland Adams said in a statement, describing Wright's opinion on the matter.

All college town police chiefs interviewed by The Dartmouth -- Chief Giaccone included -- said they were against lowering the drinking age, and many also specifically took issue with the Amethyst Initiative.

"Personally, I think it's a way for [college presidents] to eliminate a lot of their problems," Giaccone said.

While acknowledging that there are good arguments on both sides of the drinking age debate, Plymouth State University Police Chief Creig Doyle said that the legal minimum drinking age should remain at 21.

"I'm a baby boomer. I've lived through the drinking age being 18 and the drinking age being 21," Doyle said. "In my 34 years as a police officer, the last eight of which have been on college campuses, I just see the results of people who do not responsibly use alcohol."

Richard Crate, chief of police in Enfield, N.H., was critical of Wright's decision to sign the petition.

"I can't believe that somebody -- especially of that caliber of education -- would think that [asking for the drinking age to be lowered] would solve the problem," Crate said. "Let's face it -- the things that we think about when we're 16 or 17 years old aren't the same things we think about when we're in our mid-20s."