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North Hampton Chief Leaves After Investigation Into Questionable Arrest

Busted for drinking a few beers and watching a ball game in your own house?

It happened to 67-year-old Colleen Loud in North Hampton, N.H. She went from her living room sofa to the Rockingham County lock up at the hands of local police. Her arrest sparked an investigation into the policies of the small community’s police department.

Soon after that investigation, Chief Kathryn Mone suddenly announced her retirement.

Mone, once a rising star in state law enforcement circles, hasn’t given her reasons for leaving the department she took over in 2018, nor for ending her law enforcement career.

“I can’t comment on anything,” Mone said when reached over the weekend.

The circumstances surrounding Loud being taken into custody are difficult to believe. They were confirmed by arrest records and investigation documents obtained by NHJournal. That investigation revealed a culture within Mone’s department that favored police action over careful evaluation, critics say.

“(Mone) would rather get sued for taking action than not,” a police officer told investigators with Municipal Resources Inc. (MRI)

 

The story began last October 17, when a driver crashed her car into a bush on Loud’s Granite Drive property. The driver had apparently suffered a medical problem while behind the wheel, according to reports. Loud was unaware of the accident.

Police then told her about the accident and asked if she had witnessed it. She hadn’t. While Officer Matthew McCue did not notice anything unusual about Loud, Sgt. Asa Johnson told McCue he smelled alcohol and thought she might have been drinking.

“(McCue) said he did not observe any sign of impairment at that point. He explained that (Loud) seemed steady on her feet and he could not observe any odor (of alcohol) at that time,” MRI’s report states. Johnson, who was the lead officer, wanted to investigate further.

“Does she need to be p.c.’d?” Johnson reportedly asked McCue. (P.C. is short for a protective custody arrest.)

Officers returned to Loud’s home to further question her. They noticed the unclean condition of the home. Loud later told officers she had not cleaned in 10 years, according to the police report.

Asked if she had been drinking, Loud said she stopped off after work and drank a few beers before coming home to watch baseball. She said she might have had some hard lemonade at home. She was reluctant to submit to a Breathalyzer test in her own home. Facing an ultimatum from Johnson, she agreed.

The test registered a blood alcohol percentage (BAC) of .086 percent. While that is above the .08 percent legal limit for driving, New Hampshire doesn’t have a legal limit for alcohol consumption while in your own home watching a baseball game.

Based on the BAC test, however, Johnson took Loud into custody.

After the arrest — and without a warrant —  the officers went through her home taking photos of the mess. Loud was handcuffed, placed into the back of a cruiser, and transported to the Rockingham County House of Corrections.

According to McCue, Johnson said if the test showed she was not capable of driving, they would take her into custody. McCue conceded to MRI investigators that Johnson’s reasoning did not make sense.

Johnson, the lead officer on the case, told investigators Mone initially praised his decision to make an arrest. Days later, however, she told him she disagreed with some of the things he did but said she could not discuss it.

Mone told MRI she did not agree with the officers’ actions.

“Jail would not have been what I wanted, and there could have been and should have been a better resolution than that,” she said. Mone also said the officers were wrong to enter Loud’s home and take photos. She told investigators she had questions about the officers’ judgment. But she didn’t pursue additional training for them after the arrest. 

Asked what the officers should have done instead, Mone told investigators, “I don’t have an answer for that.”

Mone had once been a star in New Hampshire’s law enforcement community. She has a bachelor’s in sociology and political science and a master’s in public administration from UNH. She graduated from the FBI Academy and was named a 40 Under Forty leader by the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2020.

When Mone submitted her retirement letter on March 1 she did not explain it to town officials, said Select Board Chairman James Sununu.

“She didn’t give any specific reasons as to why,” Sununu said.

Sununu said the investigation into Loud’s arrest, received by the town in December, raised serious concerns about police department operations. He and others were working with Mone as a result of the findings.

“There were issues we felt needed to be addressed and we’re working on addressing them,” he said.

Other sources, however, said Mone’s track record was more problematic. For example, Mone became frustrated when her officers failed to arrest a member of North Hampton’s select board, Jonathan Pinette after police were called to his home, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.

The source said police were sent to Pinette’s house for a motor vehicle complaint. While there they overheard a verbal argument between a man and woman inside the residence. There was no indication of domestic violence going on, the source said.

Sgt. Johnson was also on that call. He told MRI’s investigator he spoke to the couple. “(Johnson) said there was no legal ground to take action. However, Chief Mone thought he should have done more,” the MRI report stated.

The source told NHJournal that Mone published the incident in the public police log, categorizing it as a “domestic dispute” even though that was not the case. 

Sununu declined to comment on the incident. He said the select board, as a body, did not have discussions with Mone about it.

As for Loud’s arrest, the MRI report concluded officers had several other options besides arresting her, and Johnson’s decision to arrest her was inappropriate. It attributed part of the problem to a lack of clear instructions from department leadership calling it “vague, at best.”

Johnson is no longer with the department. Mone’s last day in North Hampton is set for March 31. Her resignation is to be discussed at Monday’s select board meeting. 

Sununu wanted to make sure that going forward officers are trained and ready to use sound judgment.

“We want to help our staff do the best job they can,” he said.

Fired Cops and ‘Defund the Police’ Activists Sit On NH House Criminal Justice Committee

One is a former cop who is fighting to keep the records surrounding his firing from the force secret.

Another is a progressive who has spoken at “defund the police” rallies urging drastic restrictions on policing.

And another used her social media account to echo antisemite Louis Farrakhan’s language about Jews being “termites.”

What do they all have in common?

They all play a key role in overseeing law enforcement and crime policy in the Granite State as members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

The committee is currently chaired by Rep. Terry Roy (R-Deerfield) who was fired from the Gardner, Mass. police force for lying on his Massachusetts license to carry a firearm application, according to court records.

He serves alongside fellow Republican Rep. Jon Stone (R-Claremont), who is fighting a Superior Court order to unseal the Claremont Police Department internal affairs records that might allow voters to know why he was fired from being a police officer.

Democrats on the committee include Rep. Allisandra Rodríguez-Murray (D-Manchester), who supported the “defund the police” movement and has made problematic statements regarding allegations of antisemitism among her fellow progressives.

 

 

Peterborough Democrat Jonah Wheeler, another new member of the committee, also aggressively promoted the “defund the police” movement speaking at rallies advocating the policy.

Those members of the Criminal Justice committee will weigh in on proposed law changes, like the one to eliminate the physical fitness requirements for police officers, or one allowing convicted felons to own guns, or another legalizing Dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogenic drug used in some native peoples’ religious ceremonies.

Pat Sullivan, executive director of the New Hampshire Chiefs of Police Association, said he and other advocates in the law enforcement and public safety community, will work with whoever sits on the committee.

“The New Hampshire legislature is the third or fourth-largest legislative body in the world, we get what we get,” Sullivan said.

Neither Stone, Murray, nor Wheeler responded to requests for comment.

According to court records, Roy was fired from the Gardner, Mass. Police Department in 1999 after then-Police Chief James Dufort discovered Roy lied on his original application for his license to carry a firearm. Dufort sent Roy a letter detailing why he was revoking the license.

“I find that you are not a suitable person to be licensed to possess a firearm,” Dufort wrote.

According to a court opinion affirming the revocation, Dufort believed Roy lied on his original application when he claimed he never had a prior criminal conviction, and that he had never used drugs.

“Chief Dufort discovered, however, that Roy’s criminal records indicate that he twice appeared before a juvenile court on delinquency complaints, one for a false alarm and another for larceny. In addition, while serving in the United States Army in 1990, Roy admitted to possession and use of cocaine,” Judge Timothy Hillman wrote.

Roy would keep fighting his termination in court, which he said was payback from some in Gardner City Hall after he arrested a city councilor for drunk driving. He eventually reached a settlement with the city, had his personnel record cleared, and had his termination changed to a resignation. Even though Roy would get his firearms license back and go on to work as an investigator for the state of Massachusetts, his time in Gardner continues to be used by political enemies.

“Because they know, that no matter how small the position, whether it pays, is volunteer, or as in this case, actually costs the person money to do; the other party will attempt to drag them and their families through any mud they can find, regardless how old or how untrue,” Roy said. “I was a much younger and healthier man a quarter century ago when I originally fought and won this in the press and the courts. It would be nice to be able to stop at some point.”

Stone, like Roy, became politically active after his career in New Hampshire law enforcement ended with termination. He is currently a member of the Claremont City Council and won a close vote in November to take the seat in the state House.

In 2006, Stone was fired from the Claremont Police Department for reasons that have never been made public. This reporter made a 2020 Right to Know request seeking Stone’s internal affairs records, and Stone has been attempting to keep the investigations into his actions as a police officer, and the possible reasoning for his firing from the department, hidden from the public since.

Last month, Sullivan Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg ordered Stone’s records released, but stayed that order to give Stone time to appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) dismissed concerns about Roy and Stone’s past.

“I can’t imagine why I would concern myself with the distant past HR file of a legislative colleague,” Osborne said.

Rodríguez-Murray and Wheeler have both been vocal in their support for defunding police. They are also part of the progressive Rights and Democracy organization that targeted former Rep. Nicole Klein Knight (D-Manchester) after she complained about Rep. Maria Perez’s anti-Semitic statements.

Wheeler was following Klein Knight out of a committee meeting when she got into a verbal exchange with him, during which she used the n-word several times. She later claimed she was using the word as an example of offensive, and not pejoratively directed at Wheeler, who is African American.

During the ensuing fallout, Rodríguez-Murray decried Klein Knight’s lack of an apology two weeks after the incident and employed an anti-Semitic trope.

“Two weeks without an apology from @RepNicoleK and I’m done expecting one. we kicked the termite nest and uncovered racism permeating further into the party than we could’ve anticipated, and I for one am done wasting my energy on so-called allies,” she wrote on Twitter.

The “termite nest” reference echoes a highly-publicized statement by notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan who declared, “I am not an antisemite. I am anti-termite.”

Klein Knight herself had been a member of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee until the incident with Wheeler.

House Minority Leader Rep. Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) did not respond to a request for comment.

Sullivan said he and the police chiefs who go before the committee work hard to connect with all the members and educate them about the realities of police work. Ultimately, it is the voters who decide who gets to go to Concord he said.

“These are elected folks and their constituents elected them,” he said.