Home  News Opinion I Accuse!
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I Accuse! |
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Written by Claude Roessiger
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The following is from a full page ad placed by Claude Roessiger in the Aug. 31st, 2006 issue of the Granite State News.
On the night of April 17th, 2004 the Wolfeboro Police and the New Hampshire State Police entered upon my property without invitation, on a false pretense; entered and searched my home without permission or warrant, after having been requested not to; arrested and manacled my 17-year-old daughter and four of her friends without providing them their rights; ordered private vehicles towed from my property without cause; and jailed my daughter and her friends, male officers having intimately frisked her without the presence of any female officer or guard. The charges against my daughter, in our own house, were "possession of alcohol" (Which the WPD seems to understand as being present anywhere where there are alcoholic beverages. Does your home have alcoholic beverages?), and "sale of alcoholic beverages" (Which the WPD understands as being present in your own home when anyone else there has an alcoholic beverage, entirely irrespective of the provenance of that beverage.)
On September 29th, the Carroll County Court dismissed all charges against my daughter, on the straightforward basis that the charges were improper charges, unsupported by any evidence, and that the actions of the police violated both the United States and the New Hampshire Constitutions. Almost incredibly when the prosecutor was asked by the judge why the police had not sought a search warrant the prosecutor replied, "I don't think the court would have granted a warrant under the circumstances." So, that makes things clear, doesn't it: if a court won't grant a warrant, our police simply become a law unto themselves and do whatever they please, the Constitution be damned. Indeed, the judge, after disposing of the two charges made against my daughter, appended 8 pages of instructions for the police, which begin as follows "Although the above rulings dispose of the cases against the defendant, the court takes this opportunity to address the warrant less entry of the Roessiger residence in the interest of providing some guidance for future cases." The court has done its job. It is now for the citizens to do theirs and to see to it that we have a police, local and state, which respects our Constitution, which acts within the law.
This is not a trivial event, and it is why my daughter and my wife and I chose to fight these false charges, this clear cut violation of our constitutional rights, and the degradation to which my daughter was subjected. Our police today respect no law but their own, the adrenaline laden assault trooper mentality of a hopped-up Rambo military, which left unchecked leads to the behavior which brought such shame to most American hearts in the Abu Ghraib Prison. It was perhaps not only by coincidence that many of those involved in the prison scandals were policemen and prison guards on tours of duty in the military, encouraged from on high by zealots whose purpose remains to be frankly proclaimed. We are today overwhelmed in our police forces by such individuals, bullies in a uniform they degrade, the shameful members of an otherwise brave and honorable service.
We have spoken a great deal of late of the defense of freedom. My freedom is that of our forefathers, the freedom of a free people as proclaimed in our Constitution. It is the freedom of our Constitutional Rights, unalienable, absolute, timeless. It is the freedom of Article IV of our Constitution, which protects our homes and our property from the intrusion of the state. It is the freedom for which we went to court. It is the freedom which the court upheld.
These are the facts. This is the unequivocal ruling of the court. But the judge went further, going to important lengths in the text of the ruling to elucidate for the police how their future behavior ought to be guided. How have things gotten so wrong with our police, how can this police-state scenario exist in our country? My family is not alone. The attack on my home is indeed an all too-common occurrence in Wolfeboro today, and across our state, reproduced with numbing similarity, cowing average citizens who prefer or are only financially able to sign the pleas, to pay the fines, and to look away, to try to overlook the abrogation of their rights. I say no! I accuse!
We have recently been given, in what was at first no more than a ploy, the resignations of our erstwhile chief of police, under whose responsibility these events have occurred, and a commissioner who could see no wrong in it. We must not play the game. The resignations must be irrevocable and only a beginning. We must retake control of our community police; we must instruct them in what community policing means to us; we must have a chief who shares our values, our purpose, and who respects our instructions; we must retrain those members of the force who can be retrained and separate ourselves from those who cannot; and we must be ever vigilant, knowing that the reality of today is that many of the military's most aggressive members seek employment in civilian police work.
Everyone who knows me -and I have been involved in my hometown's affairs a very long time- knows I am without ill-will in community affairs, knows I respect and support good community police, feeling indeed that they are one with us and we with them, and that I revere the institutions of our liberty. That is why I am angry. A group of bullies, high and low, have hijacked our flag and our purpose, wrapped themselves in it, and use these as their shibboleths to power. No! We must stand with Benjamin Franklin who wisely observed, "Those who would give up liberty for security will find neither."
As Americans, we have only one choice: we must act.
Claude Roessiger Wolfeboro
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