Concord Monitor Reports on Manch Mass Arrests

The Concord Monitor’s report focuses on Garret Ean of Concord, who is a blogger at FreeConcord.org and was arrested in the mass arrests of liberty activists outside Manch PD on Saturday. Thanks to Matthew Spolar for the story:

A Concord activist was among eight people arrested at a protest outside the Manchester police station this weekend.

Garret Ean, a 22-year-old Pleasant Street resident who lost a race for a House seat last year, was charged with disorderly conduct at a Saturday afternoon protest that called for more accountability within the Manchester Police Department.

Ean said the protest, organized by copblock.org, a law enforcement watchdog site, was held in reaction to two recent headlines: an attorney general’s report clearing off-duty officers in the beating of a man outside the Strange Brew Tavern and the shooting of a man during a standoff last month.

“We felt someone was needed to bring it to Manchester PD’s attention that there are people who do want to hold them accountable for their actions,” Ean said yesterday.

He was released on personal recognizance bail Saturday and is set to be arraigned June 23.

Manchester police Sgt. Todd Boucher said most of the charges stemmed from protesters writing slogans on the station building with chalk, which was washed off later that night by the Manchester Fire Department. The arrested have been released on charges that include criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and false report, he said.

“We’re okay with a protest, but they went a little too far when they started writing on the building,” Boucher said.

Boucher said the chalk slogans didn’t directly reference the recent headlines.

“A lot of them were about ‘stop stealing our money’ – basically a kind of anti-government protest,” he said.

Ean, who writes a blog at freeconcord.org, said at least five protesters had their cameras confiscated by the police. Boucher said the cameras were “absolutely not” taken to prevent publication of the officers’ actions, but rather held as evidence to show “which individuals were doing what.”

Ean said he did not write on the building and was arrested for simply standing too close to chalk writings on the sidewalk that officers were attempting to document. Boucher said he didn’t have Ean’s report on hand but said “there’s definitely more to it than that.”

Boucher said 10 to 12 officers were used to monitor the protesters.

“It did drain some of our resources from other areas of the city to deal with these people,” he said.

Ean said that of the 30 to 40 people who showed up at the 4 p.m. protest, “I don’t believe anybody that day was looking to get arrested.”

“I think it’s very unfortunate that the Manchester police felt they had to escalate the situation in such a way,” Ean said.

Ean said he feels accountability protests are important because police departments have a “geographic monopoly” in law enforcement.

“There’s no mechanism for challenging that,” he said. “It’s like if there was just one food store.”

Read more at Free Keene