Several things occurred near the end of summer of 2015 in this holy war against an alleged intolerant Police Department in Merrimack, NH.

In August, the PD hosted a “Coffee with a Cop” program at the local Starbucks (this has occurred at other locations in the past, this time it was here. I met with a detective, whom I don’t remember the name. He explained the police reporting system, that a criminal report is filed on one computer, and incidents as mentioned in the complaints were filed on another system tied to the police’s IP network. Unless someone can do a backdoor hack, then could someone see my record. Typically most reports, according to this detective are filed with full name + date of birth (similar to full name + medical record numbers in healthcare.) He explained smiliary to what the DRCNH told me that higher ranking officers need to log things for accountability, but unlike Mr. Zigra, he told me “not to minimize your concerns, but please be assured” that such report wouldn’t be used in background checks, etc.

Chief Doyle was at Starbucks, and most of them left around 11:00 (if memory serves me.) I stayed low, I didn’t approach him, but he didn’t approach me (perhaps a court order demanded him of a gag order with me?)  What was kinda disturbing, about a minute or two after they left, I decided to go to the nearby mall, before you get there as a pedestrian, you need to get to some crosswalks.

Well, just as I hit my foot to the crosswalk, I saw that same Ford Five Hundred gold sedan with someone that looked like Chief Doyle.  I tried to make eye contact with him to cross, but he just kept on creeping past the crosswalk and didn’t even see me. The Chief of Police was distracted and didn’t pay attention. If I was a reckless walker, he probably would’ve ran me over.

However, I still felt there was abuse of power. The last attempt I reached out to the Town Council was in late September. I wrote a direct email

All,

Your board was notified (without my explicit permission) in late April of alleging misconduct by the Police Chief of an encounter earlier that month. She refused to take action and told me “expect no further communication from me on this matter”, I’ve tried to go public and the Chairman sent me a cut and pasted legalese memo in July that your board has a “vested interest” in the Town Manager and you refused to allow me to speak publicly about the misconduct of both employees. Your board in plain English “passed the buck” (or “deferred”) the complaint to the Chief to the Town Manager (who I also had alleged misconduct) and the misconduct of the Town Manager was going to legal counsel.

I as a citizen with a vulnerable condition should have the right to know what is going on with the two employees I’ve alleged have abused me to the point where felt more vulernable than prior to April. I also find it very disturbing that no one else from the board has even reached out to me, despite giving out my number and email in almost every conversation (or should I say correspondences – since your board thinks you’re the US Congress.) I’ve never attended a TC meeting since relocating to Merrimack 5 years ago, so you don’t know me and I really don’t know you. I find the actions of both parties enable hostility and anger from citizens, and in some cases could cause hatred to local government. In my situation, I’ve remained at home, and have limited my community exposure in case I am a target by local law enforcement or the town government.

Please understand that Merrimack’s developmental disability community is very significant (not just children) than in other towns. The online activity on April 2nd by the Chief and the Police department was slap in the face. I find the Council’s lack of attention to this concern appalling and I find it sickening that people may think I am just playing around or even worse just enjoying someone being bullied for entertainment – from the elected body of this town and the employees.

I have tried to be cooperative, but it seems to be a one way street. I do not feel that these actions I allege should be done through electronic legalese memos and be discussed in person or on the phone or gawd knows what other medium. Currently I have no legal representation as this is a non-concern to the Disability Rights Center. If any other Council member will have an open mind and keep aside their politics and remain objective, I’d be open to discuss this further, because I’ve kept most of the important concerns quiet unless I would be able to speak about this in person as common people and (forgive me for the language) without this legal-speak crap. These concerns should have some conclusion at this point (probably against me, I fear.)

Thanks for continuing to respect my concerns and addressing them in a timely manner with an anticipated cooperation from the board.

Two members responded, the one with the most response was man named Dan Dwyer, a well known tight-right conservative, that will never turn because it would be politically correct to move to another direction, because tight-righties can never be liberal or be slandered as RINO, like Kelly (Not Related to Steven) Ayotte. Or so he claims on the opinion section of Patch.com, (the web’s equivalent to Metro Networks where they rip and read news stories claiming to be their content. Please don’t support Patch.) I mean, that he will attack democrats, and defend all conservative views all the time. Most of Merrimack leans right, and many far, far right. (Fiscally I can understand, socially – well I’m sorry I have to disagree.)  I guess some of the locals wished Merrimack was like small town again, or even worse New Hampshire having absolutely no government.

As you read below, see how he turns my above email and turns them into daggers, and also comes off cocky with many references of “you” (Remember this email is governed under RSA-91a so this is a permanent record of anti citizen agenda clearly directed by The Town of Merrimack.)

Dear Steven, I am sorry for your displeasure with the council.  We did hear your complaints and found they were not valid.  You even state in your own letter that others don’t find them valid as in the Disability Rights Center.  As you know we meet every two weeks and there is always a public comment segment that is open to everyone who wishes to speak.  Please step forward and voice your concerns or complaints about anything you wish. However, if you wish to denigrate or disparage any town employees without facts and evidence you should know you will be challenged.  I will not sit idly by watching someone bully town employees regardless of their disabilities.  Just because someone has disabilities doesn’t give them the right to be a bully.

_My phone number is [number redacted] if you wish to speak to me, otherwise I will see you on a Thursday night.

In early October, We scheduled a telephone meeting facilitated by me. I used the star-6-7 command so he wouldn’t use my number against me (I hate to be so paranoid…but I had the right to protect myself from the real bullies.) I recorded the telephone call on my iPod Touch (the decommissioned iPhone 4) for security purposes, and my case manager from my area agency was included in the call. We made cue card like post its to ensure I would be on point and avoid “vague” questions. The first question was why I wasn’t on the Agenda item in July. First immediate response was “well you didn’t properly fill out the form.” No other large community, by the way requires people to fill out a formal one page form to get onto an agenda item. Similar large towns needs a simple email with perhaps an attachment of background info. Merrimack operates if the world still communicates on NetWare but writes things out on an IBM Selectric Typewriter. (this wasn’t the first time I had let the town know about this in this CY alone.)

So I then responded and said I got a certified letter stating that it’s against town policy to discuss personnel matters. He then said “well you answered your own question” (isn’t that a personal attack?) I deliberately tried to get him to crack, the second question was did he speak to the Chief directly. (Even though its against charter, you never know and I was clearly asking citizen to citizen.) He went onto a robotic response of “it’s my duty as a Town Councilor to defer to the Town Manager” a second attempt resulted in a similar defiant response. (By the way, I do understand the reason, because Selectmen systems in modern history caused lots of municipal corruption, but this was a public safety matter, you know -even when I was unable to elaborate it.)

He would then respond that “The Town Manager had conviened with the Council and asked for the Chief for ‘his version of the story’. You may not like the outcome, but we did ‘hear’ your complaint”

Are you freckin me? They never “heard” my complaint with my name, likeness to a face and voice. These decisions were a bunch of white collared hacks reading a stupid piece of paper and never went to the human who attempted to make a complaint! So Dwyer’s attempt to make skeumorphic references (emulating something looks old fashioned in the digital world) is unfair.

Not any officials or counsel from Merrimack ever called me or contacted me. The reason why I was pressing to the “Chairman”, s/he/it, Nancy Harrington in July was I wasn’t getting any tangible response. So how in the hell could Dwyer throw me under the bus and treat me like I was some spoiled brat not getting his way?

The next thing was if the Chief was in compliance to town’s Social Media Policy, found on all their Facebook pages the Town manages. While the complaint was in relevent to Twitter. Dwyer responded that he wasn’t aware of such policy, despite a 2012 meeting minutes stating that he passed a motion to draft a social media policy. Ignorance being an excuse has been the SOP throughout this saga. My case manager would respond and saying if there is such policy in place, could there be disciplinary actions, then he said this:

“May I speak bluntly, it’s a violation according to you.” Dwyer asked in a hightened snarky tone “Are you his attorney?”. Apparently ether Dwyer has chosen to never hear “Gateways Community Services” because (the tight right) conservatives do not believe in ether the Medicaid or Medicaid Waiver system while the both of us got high pitched and said “no we are just communicating.” Dwyer would reciprocate the tone (in a defensive sense) and say “Well. I’m just communicating. You know, we in America live in a litigious society, and if you don’t like what someone says, you sue.” He instructed me to go to a judge, get an injunction to the Tweeter at the MPD to get the Tweet removed. Dwyer, apparently had ether forgotten or chose to ignore the facts. (Remember, I question a lot of the Autism advocates and unlike the popular advocates, I accused this department with specific facts.) Dwyer would then say, “I’m sorry to say this could be easier for you, but in 2015 in America and we live in a litigious world” (I’d cut him off and attempt to redirect his Tea Party agenda out of Merrrimack politics, and say “we’re talking about Merrimack, NH” I throw him under the Tea Party umbrella because most of these people have zero interest in municipal issues and throw America “in general” in their political narrative.)

At the end of the call we decided a “Step One” for Dwyer to contact Eileen Cabenal to meet with us and if things didn’t work out to go to “Step Two” (where Dwyer would do anything to avoid this to go into a public discussion – because god forbid we don’t follow the charter, and god forbid the Town Manager and Chief of Police fail do do their duties, and that’s not the public’s business…)

Step One never occurred, no contact was made from the Town to me, so therefore Step Two never occurred as I finally gave up what appeared to be a lost cause. To be direct, I think Dwyer was playing politics, and I felt his obscene level of defiance and deflection and defensive confirmed he wasn’t looking out for me because I don’t fit his political narrative.

EPILOGUE

There was a lot of failures at The Town Of Merrimack, where they tout a population of 27,000 people. Just a few thousand less than Salem and Derry. Both of those communities also have a track record of anti-citizen agendas. Moving to Merrimack was the safest choice, because my folks couldn’t afford to live in Nashua, Milford was too far away and Hollis and Amherst was over the price range. Hudson is on the other side of the river, Litchfield was too much of small town, and too close to Londonderry. My mother worked not to far away from where I lived, so I live in an area I knew as a kid.

I made the movement because Merrimack is a town with a larger population of developmentally disabled people (Downs, ASD, etc.) and both school age and adults, the latter in my opinion is more obvious. Several people in my day program are from Merrimack. Autism Speaks relevant to my state – your state of NH has infiltrated the progress for autism here. Many people still are not familiar to the Autism Every Day film that went public almost a decade ago produced by a broadcast journalist that has Boston DMA ties. (Jim Watkins formerly from WBZ-TV’s Evening Magzine and Lauren Thiery from TV-4 Eyewitness News) and the audacity to allow a woman stating an idea driving off the George Washington Bridge as the autistic daughter of interest runs in the camera frame. If Watkins was doing this for WPIX-TV in NYC, his higher ups would say “TAKE THAT DAMN THING OUT!” But sadly film isn’t like ENG, and drama and lies can be allowed in that medium unlike taping and editing on Betacam.

The most disturbing thing with the Police Department was how they didn’t attempt to resolve this concern. I didn’t know that I have a report till Cabenel attempted to pull a fast one at me on the email of April 28th. Can’t they understand my innocence because if I’m an autistic (as 98% don’t try to break the law) and self advocated as such, that would they continue to assault me through email? Even worse, using such strong anti citizen language as “Expect no further communication from me on this matter.” and even shut me out one last time as “This is my last email to you on this matter“, isn’t that threatening?

If Doyle did in fact write a false report, shouldn’t the Town be the one that punishes him? Technically speaking, I probably would be filing charges, but because they are bullies, they probably would shred the complaint at the police department the moment I’d leave. How is that not “bullying”, Mister Dwyer? If I was the AG, I’d punish the Chief fully and throw him into the slammer for 90 day punishment, as I previously outlined. It’s not personal, its his actions and his ignoring his most vulnerable citizens that is the most disturbing thing. Makes my fear of “Officer Dan” in Londonderry as a 7 year old look completely like child’s play. Dan Bocuard is a nice man, I’ve ran into him years later after retirement, for the record.

—

The DRC experiment was pretty damning too. They show massive corruption and obvious abuse. James Zigra has no business demeaning autistics like me and treat me like a 6 year old at a legal service organization for disabled people. I tried to redirect him of the said boldface above, and he dissed me. I don’t know how he can be a lawyer from UNH when most Millennials that graduated in the last 15 years had done a lot of drinking and other substance abuse and somehow get diplomas. I’m not trying to get personal, but I do paint UNH people with a broad brush on a professional and intellectual sense, because other people have abused me and came from UNH. UNH never teaches people real-world skills, which the actions by Zigra confirmed my years long theory of hatred to the Institution in Durham.

DRC does not provide legal advice, they are a political group creating mayhem such as attempting to shut down organizations like Crotched Mountain, and employ rich white people who don’t understand what its like to not rich or white outside the Capital District. They are a special interest group. The very deep southern part of the state is the most hateful groups against autistics, and yet Amy Messier, and Zigra pretend to live in their own world that tolerance is existent statewide. I’ve notified Messier that I’d be contacting the AG and FBI for possible corruption. (The complaint is the project for next year – or next month.)

Lastly I am very disappointed with the current members of the Merrimack Town Council (not in order), “Chairman” Nancy Harrington, Tom Koening, Dan Dwyer, Jody Valencourt, Finlay Rothaus, Thomas Mahon and that tiny guy that takes both his job and himself so seriously William Boyd. It’s not just him, the other cast of characters act similarly. You ether take your job or yourself seriously, you can’t do both, or risk being laughed at for being so serious. The Town Manager had carbon copied the email to the board without my explicit permission and they clearly knew what was going on. A sane board would reach out after the agenda item request and sit down and talk to the citizen and try to resolve it. But they knew what was going on, they saw the abuse by both the Chief of Police and the Town Manager through the emails, and they refused to do anything, and refused to speak to me. They were stuck on a template, and fake themselves if they were some lawyers. (Isn’t a crime to falsify your job, faking being a lawyer by writing a legalese memo?)

Dwyer stating “America in 2015 is a litigious world” is bullcrap. You choose to live in a world controlled by lawyers, or run it like civil laymen types. New Hampshire has chosen a very illogical path of making laws seem to be written by lawyers, waste thousands of papers in the private sector to do business with the State. (No other states in the region, like Massachusetts, New York or even Connecticut haves RFPs so goddamn legalese.) In short, you choose to live a litigious world. Throwing me under the bus by a town board member is apparently not a crime – yet.

– —

This would not have occurred if the Chief of Police just responded to my concerns directly to me and met with me in a public gathering place (as requested) to address the concerns, instead of allegedly laughing to himself pasting entire email including with my new business name and personal identified telephone number as I got punished for contributing to society that goddamned report.

I intentionally gave the Town half the story with the intent to be challenged. Apparently these people take things so literally, they took the complaint and narrative at face value and then kept me out of an issue involving me. I’ve learned to give the authorities “the kitchen sink” and if they come back to throw it to me and crush me to death, then so be it. For the record, half stories as a challenge/response mechanism doesn’t work in New Hampshire.

I’ve remained as professional I can be, and never used any vulgarities, or even threatened ones life or safety. The only threat I made was to go public and expose the department, the organization and not any said individual.

I want this story to be public, because Federal and State laws will require individuals with developmental disabilities to be out in public, whether the public likes it or not, or whether the individual likes it or not. (It’s ironic that Cabenal once worked for the City of Laconia, at the time when the Laconia State School was still in existence.) In order for a community based services to work successfully, one cannot be writing up people who are not breaking any rules and not be treating them like they are an heroin dealer.

What goes around – comes around. To close this long chapter of 2015, I can’t help to say

“This is the last you’ll hear from me on this matter.”