• We are now running on a new, and hopefully much-improved, server. In addition we are also on new forum software. Any move entails a lot of technical details and I suspect we will encounter a few issues as the new server goes live. Please be patient with us. It will be worth it! :) Please help by posting all issues here.
  • The forum will be down for about an hour this weekend for maintenance. I apologize for the inconvenience.
  • If you are having trouble seeing the forum then you may need to clear your browser's DNS cache. Click here for instructions on how to do that
  • Please review the Forum Rules frequently as we are constantly trying to improve the forum for our members and visitors.

Manchester, NH Police Department Written Directives

mvpel

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
371
Location
Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA
imported post

The attached file is the first of a set which encompasses the written directives of the Manchester, NH police department which are promulgated to comply with the requirements of the CALEA (Commission for Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies) accreditation process, as follows:

Section 1.2.3 – “A written directive governs procedures for assuring compliance with all applicable constitutional requirements…”

Section 1.2.4 – “A written directive governs search and seizure without a warrant by agency personnel…”

Section 1.2.5 – “A written directive specifies the procedures for any arrest, made with or without a warrant…”

Section 1.2.9 – “… a written directive governing bias based profiling…”

Section 1.3.1 – “A written directive states personnel will use only the force necessary to accomplish lawful objectives.”

These sections of the Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies document are what I judged to be the most relevant to the Manchester Police Department's conduct towards individuals lawfully and peaceably carrying defensive firearms openly.

The first point to note - when you are told that you are "not free to leave," your conversation with the police officer detaining you for peaceable open carry becomes a "custodial interview," also known as an "interrogation," and invokes a requirement for the Miranda warning.

A custodial interview involves the questioning of an individual who is under arrest and/or is considered “not free to leave”. Care must be taken by officers to consider a person’s right to remain silent and right to counsel. Resulting statements, admissions, and confessions must be given freely and voluntarily for them to be admissible as evidence.

1. Adult Miranda
...
b. Miranda warnings are then required and shall be administered prior to all custodial interviews.

I'll post more bits later.
 

mvpel

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
371
Location
Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA
imported post

The second directive attached governs search & seizure.

Particular to open carry:

In order for a police officer to undertake an investigatory stop, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion—based on specific, articulable facts taken together with rational inferences from those facts – that the particular person stopped has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.
State v. Vadnais, 141 N.H. 68, 70 (1996)

The suspect’s conduct must lead somewhere specific, not just to a general sense that this is probably a bad person who may have committed some kind of a crime. Id.

Of interest to particularly rock-ribbed & stiff-necked people:

A person who is the subject of an investigatory stop is not required to identify themselves and a police officer may not search his person for identification without that person's consent. See State v. Webber, 141 N.H. 817 (1997)
This directive also explains that there are only five exceptions to a warrant requirement for a search: Search incident to an arrest, Stop and frisk (Terry), Plain View, Exigency, Consent.

Since presumably those exercising their civil right to carry openly will not waive their civil right against search, we'll disregard "consent."

A search incident to an arrest requires that "1. There must be a lawful custodial arrest;" - an arrest lacking probable cause that a crime "has been, is, or is about to be committed" is not a "lawful custodial arrest."

A "stop & frisk," aka. "Terry pat-down" has these requirements:

1. There must be reasonable suspicion for the police officer to stop a person; and
2. The police officer must have reasonable suspicion to believe that the person is presently armed.
You may have noticed that police frequently point to Terry to justify their harassment of open carriers, but as you can see, neither of these provisions apply to stopping a peaceable open-carrier.

The document further notes:

The search must be strictly confined to what is minimally necessary to
discover the presence of a weapon. See State v. Roach, 141 N.H. 64, 67
(1996)
Given that the pretense for the stop was the presence of the weapon, claiming this warrantless search exception doesn't really make any sense.

An openly carried sidearm is in "plain view," but the MPD directive specifies that the officer must have "probable cause to believe it is evidence of criminal activity."

Exigency, or "emergency situations" encompass the general categories of "rendering emergency aid," "imminent destruction of evidence," and "hot pursuit," none of which pertain to peaceable open carry.

Thus in general, any seizure and search of a peaceable open carrier without any specific indication of criminal activity appears to be a violation of these directives.
 

mvpel

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
371
Location
Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA
imported post

The third attached directive is entitled "Authority, Law Enforcement Role," and discusses the code of ethics, bias-based profiling, and the use of force - 1.2.9 and 1.3.1 of the CALEA standard.

In particular, from the code of ethics for sworn personnel:

As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence and disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality, and justice.

Apparently for some Manchester officers, protecting the peaceful against violence doesn't extend to someone peacefully carrying a firearm openly in compliance with the law.

In the bias-based profiling section:
Training programs will emphasize the need to respect the rights of all citizens to be free from unreasonable intrusions into their every day affairs, ...

I hope you find the attached documents interesting and informative.
 

ilbob

Campaign Veteran
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
778
Location
, Illinois, USA
imported post

The local rag asked the PD for a copy of its use of force guidelines recently. The PD responded you can ask, but we are not going to give it to you.

This was in repsonse to a guy who died after being tasered, and the PD stating it was well within its own guidelines for use of force.

Good trick. You get to decide for yourself if you violated your own secret rules.
 

ilbob

Campaign Veteran
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
778
Location
, Illinois, USA
imported post

mvpel wrote:
Must be a beaten-down sad-sack newspaper if they took THAT lying down. Haven't they ever heard of 50 ILCS 205?


the pd claims that the policy is not a record, and thus does not apply.


it is a sad sack newspaper.
 
Top