A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
Julian Jefferson, a staff attorney in the New Hampshire Public Defender’s office, has represented victims of racism and experienced it firsthand.
“I am a black man,” he said in his testimony before the Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency. “I have lived in New Hampshire since 2008. I have been working in the criminal justice system since 2011. I can tell you that racism exists in this state and in our criminal justice system.”
The Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency has been quietly at work since June. Although its meetings over the summer were public, they received little attention amid the noise of a national election, a public health crisis and a struggling economy.
That’s about to change with the new year, as legislation to implement the commission’s findings begins to work its way through the State House and the reality of what is being proposed becomes more apparent to the many stakeholders.
After dozens of new police applicants in New Hampshire are winnowed by a rigorous process of written tests, interviews, oral boards, polygraph tests and background checks, many prospective officers must also be psychologically evaluated before they go through the state police academy to become certified.
(Family members pinned the badges on eight new Derry Police officers at a swearing in ceremony outside the Tupelo Music Hall on Aug. 27. (Ryan Lessard))
Nationwide calls for police reform following protests over systemic racism, police brutality and the killing of unarmed black people have started conversations in New Hampshire and elsewhere to identify weaknesses in police standards and accountability and to fix them. Those conversations turn again and again to accreditation, a process that involves a third party regularly inspecting and reviewing a department’s policies, procedures and facilities to make sure it’s following best practices in policing.
Sarah Letendre was arrested on July 11 following a reported domestic violence incident at her Rollinsford home with her husband, R.J. Letendre, a Dover police officer. She was later charged with violating a protective order in the case. She allegedly fled from police, but turned herself in on Thursday after Rollinsford police obtained an arrest warrant.
However, she has since spoken out about the case on Facebook.
(Dozens of people marched from Henry Law Park in Dover to the police station to protest Sarah Letendre’s arrest. Photo By Damien Fisher, Granite State News Collaborative)
Law enforcement officials, minority leaders and members of the public are taking a hard look at the way police officers are trained in New Hampshire, how that compares to other states, and what can be done to improve instruction time and mandatory curriculum surrounding race relations, proper use of force and deescalation techniques.
