“Responding to a reporter’s right-to-know request for records related to the incident, Iosue said via email Aug. 15 that documents related to individual inmate discipline are exempt under state law from public release.”
"According to a jail disciplinary report, Tucker and three other inmates had violated several rules, including against “any organized activity that disrupts institutional security.”
I smell B.S. and a victimless crime situation all around; if he’d done something really wrong would they call it “activity that disrupts institutional security"? Sentinel also says he was in on drug charges. Am I missing anything important?
Do you think man’s complaint should become NHfree.com business? It’s not like we lack proof of the Keene jail’s previous misbehavior:
The man’s complaint seems to meet most of the criterion for NHfree type activity… it was brought to the public initially by a mainstream press outlet, it’s mostly unfolding in a convenient location, it seems to involve abuse of a citizen accused only of victimless crimes and this citizen is apparently not a liberty activist. The situation seems to involve stonewalling by a specific government institution. All of these are the types of criterion we are looking for, in order to trigger NHfree.com involvement.
On the other hand, we don’t have proof that the complainant’s allegations are true, that the jail abused him, and we don’t know if he is a relatively sympathetic character.
Again… am I missing anything?
I’m still trying to catch up with some other activism … so not sure. But I like people are motivated to keep up this constant stream of activism !!!
Another thought: It will likely be difficult to contact the alleged victim in this case… that might mean we’d have to move forward before (or without) consulting him. Can anyone tell us how to contact him?
Your summary sounds spot on. Liberty activists or not, victims of government abuse deserve our attention and support. I’m presuming the video mentioned in the story as having been reviewed by the jail personnel has not been released. It would be very interesting to see what it shows. Do any steps need to be taken to ensure its release, or in the short term prevent its deletion, I wonder?
I note that the jail official claims that “documents related to individual inmate discipline are exempt under state law from public release”.
Several possibly pertinent points:
• Even if the law exempts such documents from mandatory release, I’m guessing it does not prohibit officials from releasing them.
• Is a video a “document” under the law, or does it fall outside the statute in question?
• The official says that documents “related to individual inmate discipline” are exempt, but the complaint alleges the action was in response to an “organized activity”, and there were four inmates involved, both of which imply a group rather than an individual matter.
• It’s hard to see how the video is related to “individual discipline” unless officers were engaged in disciplining inmates when it was filmed (rather than responding to a perceived security issue or something else).
• If it’s claimed that the officers were administering individual discipline, it begs the question of what actions they were disciplining individual inmates over, if Tucker’s alleged “resisting” came after the video began.