Police took four alleged drunk drivers off the road over the weekend -- two in Amherst and two in Hadley -- and three of the four consented to a breath test, of which the results clearly shows why they were arrested.
All four were arraigned before Judge Payne in Eastern Hampshire District Court and had their cases continued over the next six weeks.
Venetia Fotopulos
Keri Quinlan
Kathryn Agalar
Jenna Gagnon
24 comments:
Please remove this post. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom and you were not permitted to take these photos.
Actually I am certified to take photos in the courtroom. It is a "public space."
Best way to avoid having your picture taken in a courtroom is to, you know, avoid getting arrested.
Holy crap! There all women.
Pound for pound women have a lower tolerance for alcohol.
They should all heed Clint's advice: "A man's got to know his limitations" (or something like that).
Hey Larry, this is slander, you have no right to disgrace anyone especially since my family is the victim of a drunk driver. You didn't post any information such as how much over the limit and in AMERICA we are innocent until proven guilty. But since you are guilty... evidence above you just became a project of mine. And you legally do not have the Right to do that. See you soon! Pathetic
Go ahead, make my day!
I would still ask for you to consider removing as you are also causing even more hurt to the families, particularly the parents, of these young women. They are already upset enough with the situation and want their daughters to learn their lesson, but also still love them no matter what and don't want this kind of public humiliation. This type of post punishes the innocent families. I don't know if you have any children, but please put yourself in the shoes of these parents. Thank you.
Never hurts to ask I guess (going on years now), but the answer is still no.
Did you also ask the Gazette and Republican to remove their names?
Sound like someone wants to censor you Larry.
Yep.
And you know how well that will turn out.
Where do you get this notion the cameras are not allowed in the court room? Would you please cite some reference to that claim?
Why do you always side with the criminal?
How is Larry "disgracing" anyone? They have done that themselves. If the judge said no photos, then I guess Larry would probably have complied. Again we side with the criminals, inexplicably. And unless I serve on the jury I am not bound to consider them innocent until proven guilty.
THIS is why I love this blog! When the dimwits are upset that their dangerous, potentially life threatening, behavior is being reported on! It ensures I keep coming back to this site to enjoy their threats and obnoxious statements/comments against Mr. Kelley.
Please keep up the great work! I know I would hesitate to hire someone who was caught driving drunk.
I have a problem with the last arrest. It appears that she was drunk and went out and blew the horn of a car parked in a private driveway on private property to which the public does NOT have a right of access, and which is NOT maintained by the Town of Hadley!
The fact that the property may have a street address that has the name of a public way in it is totally irrelevant. And there are no allegations that the vehicle ever left the private driveway -- or even moved at all! It's not even stated that the vehicle's engine was even running although doesn't Massachusetts require that the vehicle be operated either on a public way or one to which the public has a right of access for it to be OUI?
Again, how is it relevant that "River Drive is a public way owned and maintained by the Town of Hadley if she wasn't on it?!?!?!?!?!? There are lots of other streets in Hadley too -- something that is only relevant if the officer is alleging that she was operating a vehicle on them...
Drunk or not, going out at 1:32 AM and "blaring" the horn of your car "for several minutes" is antisocial behavior for which the police can arrest you ---
--- arrest you for "Disturbing the Peace" which is what it actually is, with "Disorderly Conduct" usually thrown in as well for good measure.
It's no more OUI than it is poaching deer or robbing a bank -- there are lots of different crimes and one of the reasons why (a) most police officers now have a college degree and (b) even adjusted for inflation, are paid a *lot* more than officers were in the 1950's is that, in addition to knowing that what she was doing was against the law, the officer needed to know WHICH law she was breaking....
And Larry, as someone who rides a motorcycle, I make a BIG distinction between someone blowing a car horn in her driveway and someone who crossed the centerline and had a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle (i.e. the case above). If you have a head-on collision with a motorcycle, the motorcyclist is going to be more than "slightly injured."
Remember that the reason why head-on collisions are to be avoided at ALL costs (including deliberately hitting something else) is that force is equal to mass times acceleration (speed) -- your speed PLUS the speed of the oncoming vehicle. Larry, I think you should make a distinction between those drunk drivers who have an accident and those who don't, and particularly a distinction between minor fender-benders and something like being on the wrong side of the road and causing a head-on collision. The police report says that a passenger in the other vehicle was injured -- doesn't that elevate an OUI charge in Massachusetts?
As to Ms. Gagnon, I am not criticizing the Hadley PD for responding to this complaint, nor (presuming the facts stated to be true) for arresting her -- it's just what they are charging her with.
Ed, learn the facts before you spew pus. The right of way (i.e. public way) along Rt. 47 a state highway is at least 100 feet wide. Most likely she was in the setback area on public property with the motor running.
Drunk or sober, going out at 1:32 AM and blowing the horn of your car "for several minutes" is obnoxious, anti-social behavior. While it doesn't necessarily excuse it, one does have to ask what precipitated her behavior.
Drunks & crazies are actually quite predictable once you step outside your mindset, that of a rational (sober) person, and place yourself into their mindset. Once you hypothetically presume that their altered perception of reality (including paranoia & other psych stuff) actually *is* reality -- which, to them, it is -- everything they do (including how they will respond to what you say/do) is perfectly logical.
Realizing this, and acting accordingly, is how you manage to accomplish what you need to accomplish without things getting ugly, unless you are a thug who enjoys physical violence. And it isn't just avoiding the fistfight but avoiding all the paperwork you will have to fill out afterwards, but I digress...
My suspicion is that the horn was "payback" for something someone else did.
I notice that the police report states that the officer rolled on "on a report of" an (a) intoxicated (b) woman who was (c) intentionally/maliciously blaring a car horn. That's information that came from the reporting party -- and my guess is that they probably had a pretty good idea WHY she was doing it too...
After all, what does someone (including a police officer) *presume* when they see someone in a parked vehicle with the horn blaring? As it is a safety device that needs to always work, the horn button works by shorting to ground (which then trips a relay). Both the horn and the relay can go bad - which causes the horn to continuously sound. And then there are assortments of car alarms and anti-theft devices which blow the vehicle horn, all of which can be accidentally tripped. (Merely unlocking the door of a new Dodge with the key will cause the horn to repeatedly blow.)
What I would presume, particularly at 1:32 AM, is that the woman is having problems with her car and I would offer to help her -- I'd take the terminal off her battery and then suggest she call AAA (or her mechanic) in the morning. (Even if I could figure out what was wrong with it, or how to disable it (e.g. pull the fuse or relay), I'd probably disconnect the battery first -- car horns are LOUD.)
Don't we want to know what the other folks did?
Larry,
One other thought --- I think the Amherst "townies" took the wrong approach to noisy student parties.
Imagine if there were no noise ordinance at all. None.
Now imagine the upset homeowner -- who, unlike college kids, is normally up at 7-8AM anyway -- calling a few friends and a half dozen dump trucks with back-up beepers, Diesel engines, and air horns....
Do you have any idea how loud an air horn is if you hold the cord down instead of just give it a little tug? And every air horn has a slightly different note -- I've never seen two with the exact same pitch (or pitches when you have the high/low note combination).
I imagine that Slutty Suzie and Freddy Fratboy won't exactly appreciate the neighbors doing this, particularly if it is the *next* morning when they are quite hung over as well. Now as to the small children who were "terrified" by the party the night before, I suspect that they will love this (not just if they are boys) and I say put them in GrandPa's lap and let *them* pull the air horn cord.
I don't think this would have to happen more than once or twice -- anywhere in town -- before there was some honest dialogue between the students and their neighbors, conversations about what everyone will and won't do. And perish the thought, some negotiation as well -- maybe even "we'll shovel the driveways all winter if you agree to go on vacation the last Saturday before finals in May so we can have a loud party."
Larry, tell me why this wouldn't have been a better solution....
The right of way (i.e. public way) along Rt. 47 a state highway is at least 100 feet wide.
I somehow doubt that you can build a house in the right of way. Hence it stands to reason that the property extends back beyond that, and as driveways usually extend to the house so as to have as short a distance as possible to walk in the rain, there is a fair to good chance that the driveway (and hence car) wasn't in the right of way. Take the example of Chabad Rabbi's Menorah -- he didn't have to move it back far to have it on his own property.
Most likely she was in the setback area on public property with the motor running.
The facts are what the officer states in his report -- and neither is stated.
There could also have been mermaids in her swimming pool -- it doesn't matter, it's what the officer alleges and not what is "most likely."
Racial profiling started with a State Trooper in the Carolinas who realized that a young Black male driving a nice car with NY plates "most likely" was a drug courier hauling contraband up from Florida, and most of the time, he was. But I hope you know where that went...
Furthermore, was she KNOWINGLY in the setback area -- Mens Rea applies here -- if she didn't *know* she was on a public way, if she had no reason to presume that she was (i.e. she, not the Town of Hadley removes the snow from that piece of land), she's not guilty of OUI even if she was moving the vehicle.
I'm drowning in verbiage. Does Anyone read all this stuff Ed writes?
No. Because facts matter.
Who the hell is this Ed, character anyways? Sounds like
a blow heart, know it all.
Ed does.
Well, in that he wouldn't be much different from the rest of us.
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