Vandalism in Alton
 

From WMUR:

ALTON, N.H. -- Vandals in Alton spray-painted a swastika on the town's post office and covered a now-closed video store with expletives criticizing the police.

Alton police Chief Phillip Smith said the vandals also rummaged through people's cars and took GPS units. The incidents happened late Sunday or early Monday.

Police found a car that they believe was used in the vandalism spree and were taking fingerprint samples from the car. <!--stopindex-->

Things always calm down when school starts back up...

Tell me about it
 

Monday AM we found that someone had taken a rock and bashed a hole in the rear window of "Mee's" Audi. Nice. :fire: They didn't get into the car and when I was talking to the officer taking our report, he mentioned it was probably the same miscreants who did the above spray painting. I believe the "car" mentioned was stolen and it'll be very nice to see the fingerprints yield some stupid criminals.

Glad I didn't beep.
 

As I was on my way home from the dump, er transfer station, er trash place, I drove by your place and saw Mee in the doorway, and you with a shop vac, leaning into the back seat area of the Audi.

I was going to beep and wave (had a car behind me, couldn't stop), but I figured you would try to stand your 6 ft plus frame up in the 5 foot 4 inch back seat area...that would not have been a good thing, and probably the capping on just a beautiful blankety blank morning.

Sorry Mee (and Mac).:rolleye1:

Update - arrests made
 

We got a call from the Alton PD this AM. Seems they caught the pinheads believed responsible for the vandalism in town and to Mee's car. There's an article about it in today's Citizen.

Kudo's to the Alton PD ! :patriot:

http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll...866/-1/CITNEWS

"Police have charged three individuals in connection with a crime spree that began Sunday night and continued into Monday morning and again on Tuesday night into Wednesday, involving several thefts, burglaries and acts of vandalism.

Alton police on Wednesday afternoon arrested Seth Fifield, 17, of Alton, along with two local juvenile males, after gathering evidence and following up on leads. Fifield was charged as an adult and was held at the Belknap County Department of Corrections jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bail, which was lowered to $5,000 at his arraignment on Thursday. The two juveniles were transported to the Youth Detention Center in Manchester. The three face multiple counts of theft and criminal mischief, burglary, theft of a vehicle, criminal liability for conduct of another and receiving stolen property.

Alton police are following a lead that could result in the arrest of a fourth person.

Vandals on Sunday night into Monday morning allegedly spray-painted a number of buildings, cars and signs and rifled through vehicles while stealing several items. They allegedly took a landscaping truck for a ride and drove through a fence at Alton Central School."

More at the above URL.

That is great news MnM! Hopefully justice is truly served.

Don't you have any "Hate Crime" or "discrimination" laws up there in New Hampshire? It seems that the swastika painted on the post office deserves some kind of hate crime charge also.:(

New Hampshire's kind of a "Lock The Punks Up" state.

I heard that the Feds have to investigate the Post Office aspect as falls under federal jurisdiction.

Your correct it does. Same thing with messing with someones mailbox, if your a kid you don't wanna be messing with mailboxes. And no, I don't know from experience. :D

Stay in Saugus
 

No, we don't, and for good reason.

Why not stay there in Saugus? Mass. is much more your speed.

whoa
 

That was hateful and uncalled for, in more than one way.

Why not ? Are you racicts up there north of the border ?

And why the personal attack ? What's your problem? How do you know whats my speed ?

And the racist comment is directed directly at gokart mozart, not people from New Hampshire in general. Most people in New Hampshire are great and the lifestyle is much more relaxed, which is why I come up there whenever I can. I'm just trying to figure out why gokart has so much hatred for people from Mass. but will defend someone who paints a swastika on the side of a public building.:confused:

Just my opinion but I believe that there are many long time NH residents who are tired of those from Mass and other states moving to NH and trying to change things to what they had back home. NH used to be unique and basically conservative. The influx of folks from more liberal tax and spend oriented states are slowly changing the complexion of NH and I believe not for the better.

I personally have been looking for my retirement home in NH to escape what is happening politically here in Mass. I am looking to get back to small town, take care of yourself American values which are rapidly disappearing most everywhere. I hope I can find a place in NH for the duration of my years where folks don't look to government for their every need.....and juvenile pranks and paintings aren't considered hate crimes but just destruction of government property,and the perpetrators are punished appropriately if caught.....stocks and public humiliation on the town green would be appropriate in my view.

What the heck does Mass. and its residents have to do with the vandalism in Alton? Did I miss something?

Chip, it has nothing at all to do with the vandalism at Alton Bay. It's just part of the personal attack on me and my views. It appears some people cannot follow rules ie. " no personal attacks" & "keep it on topic" .

Toad is looking to "escape" Mass. and all it's rules and taxes, but apparently everyone else from Mass. is just trying to come up and make N.H. just like Mass.

You are not kidding, back about 15 years ago a car load of kids were hitting mailboxes with baseball bats on our road and others. Needless to say they destroyed over 300 mailboxes in four towns and had to pay to have everyones mailbox replaced and they included a letter of apology, my parents still have that mailbox as they were not cheap plastic ones but nice metal boxes, I can only imagine what that cost them for a night with nothing better to do. I can tell you that stupid thought never once crossed my mind as something fun to do with teenage spare time. In my opinion that is a better punishment than charging a kid with a hate crime for a stupid idea, granted stealing a car is another story and that is not something the typical "looking for something to do" kid would consider a good idea and perhaps they will be forever lost, but to many people are put in prison for things that a good dose of public humiliation would cure. Like painting all those building with a sign stating that they are serving a punishment and for what. MnM could set them up for target practice to get ready for the Cow Is. invasion.

Not an attack, so please do not take it this way, as the attack to your earlier post was uncalled for and from left field. But being a lifelong NH resident, we are seeing more and more things being brought up in our town that new residents would like to see. Luckily we still hold the majority and vote it down at town meeting, but it is happening at an alarming rate. It is not just Mass either, southern NH residents and other states in the area as well. The town I am located in actually has a non-resident taxpayer meeting each year prior to town meeting that allows for those that cannot vote a chance to add things to the agenda, but we get the final say at town meeting. Not all ideas are bad either, sometimes a different perspective is good.

Yes, New Hampshire has a law providing for increased penalties for hate-motivated violence. If a person was “substantially motivated to commit the crime because of hostility towards the victim’s religion, race, creed, sexual orientation . . ., national origin, or sex,” penalties may be increased. The defendant must be notified of the possibility of an enhanced penalty prior to the trial. (See RSA 651)

However, the MOTIVE for the crime is going to be key in deciding whether the offensive tagging was a true hate crime or if it was simply done for shock-value.

If I had done something like that as a kid, prison would have been welcome compared to what my parents would have come up with as a punishment! :D I wouldn't have dared to do anything like that - ever! :eek:

Thanks Argies wife,

a simple answer to a simple question. That's all I was asking for. And for the record, I don't think it was a hate crime, I think it was just kids being kids (NOT THAT IT MAKES IT o.k. - IT'S NEVER O.K. TO DAMAGE ANOTHER PERSON'S PROPERTY). I was just curious if you had a particular type of law, As oftentimes law enforcement will use any charge they can to throw the book at someone they think deserves it.

Jmen,

I agree with you completely ! I am from Mass., so believe me I see it everyday. People are moving North and bringing the stupid liberal Mass. rules and regulations with them at an alarming rate. Anyone who doesn't believe me, just take a look at the shiny new sign at Braun Bay! But not everybody from Mass. is a liberal. Toad and gokart mozart don't know me or what i'm about and should not presume to know me. As a matter of fact I'm about as far from liberal as you get, which is why I was so angry at the uncalled for attack on my post. I also have relatives in Landaff, N.H. (north of Franconia Notch) and I can assure you that "live free or die" is still very much alive up there !!! I also love visiting up there, so I can be free from "the Man" and his rules and regulations. Unfortunately the Lake is far enough south to be influenced by Massachusetts and it's foolish liberal laws.

IMHO,I think people are using the "kids being kids" a little to often. As stated before if I had so much as thought of doing things like that I would probably still feel it today. Have kids just not been taught to respect others and their property or do they just not care. As a parent we stress to ours that you earn respect by showing it.

Mine too, my father always told me that if I got picked up for ANYTHING that I would be better off staying in jail or calling someone else. I never had the desire to call his bluff.

I believe you should re-read my post. I never mention you or your post and I did not and do not presume to know you. Me thinks thou dost protest too much and should slow down when reading replies. You took my post way to personally. There was no attack and non was even presumed. Your responses however, speak volumes about you.

I believe the phrase used today is " They are expressing themselves". I see it quite often when meeting with clients at their homes, kids running around screaming and attacking each other, yelling at the parents while I am trying to sell our companies services and the parents do not seem bothered by this action at all, I am 27 years old so this is not a back in my day thing, but I can tell you that would have never been tolerated in my parents home regardless of who the company was that was visiting, and my parents never once laid a hand on us so that was not the punishment, but respect was given at all times or else and yes I did find that my smart mouth got me into the else category a few times, we had a small farm so the punishment was usally hard labor on a summer day when all my friends went to the lake.:(

It looked to me that two plus was defending you,and not presuming to know you as you put it.

I apologize, two plus two was defending me. I was so riled up over the attack by gokart mozart, that I carelessly accused my advocate. What I meant was "gokart mozart and toad".

Again, two plus two, I apologize and thank you for your support.

Might I ask where in my original post I attacked you? I would think you are walking around with a mighty big chip on your shoulder if you could possibly construe my post as a personal attack.

Toad,

your post was an attack on people from Mass. I am from Mass.
And seeing that your post had absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread "Vandalism in Alton", I consider it a continuationof the attack against people from Mass. that gokart-mozart started.

Lets see if I got this right...
 

I just recently read somewhere here where someone said; "Nobody yells at my kid without getting an ear full form me" or something to that effect. My thoughts then were; "my god what's going to become of these kids of today when no one can scold them for getting caught being little jerks". Now you're (thats the rhetorical "you") saying someone should have put them in there place long before it got this far.

Well, which is it?

All I can say is; if my father had caught me being reprimanded in a restaurant (right or wrong), we would have gone for a walk out back for a little father to son chat and only one of us would be returning to finish diner... To be caught doing a vandalism spree like that, well, we don't need to speak about any near-death experiences. However, just the thought of what might happen was enough to keep me from doing such deeds.

How's that old saying go? "Spare the whip and spoil the child"... I'm living proof it worked for me.

I live in Mass....and the people of Massachusetts are under attack from thier own government. You got to learn to be way less sensitive....you'll live longer.

Oh, dear, I feel I have to respond to some of the comments going around in this.

First, since when is being liberal or conservative a crime? I grew up in Massachusetts and live in the god-forsaken state of NJ. I consider myself neither conservative nor liberal and hope I fall somewhere in the middle, agreeing with some conservative policies and with liberal ones. I don't care if people are conservative or liberal as long as what you do is fair as possible to everyone else.

Two, painting swastikas on another's property is a crime, period. Hate crimes are neither conservative nor liberal - just hateful and wrong. It is vandalism. It is indeed a hate crime whether that was the intent or not. It is the appearance that should matter even if the motive is lacking. Of course, the law requires a hateful motive. Being liberal or conservative shouldn't make a difference. If someone does something illegal that is meant to denegrate someone based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, then it should carry enhanced penalties to discourage the behavior. Tolerance is what we are looking for. If we don't have it here at home, how can we expect in those in other countries who hate all of us simply because we are Americans?

Three, as for boys being boys, well, that should have gone out long ago. Here in Jersey about 18 years ago, a dozen boys from a very respectable town sexually assaulted a learning disabled girl of their own age on a pool table in the basement of one of the kids homes simply because they could and she desperately wanted to fit in. Their parents claimed it was just boys being boys, but it was still statutory rape (being learning disabled made it so). They all spent time in jail as I recall because they were NOT just boys being boys. They were criminals committing a crime. It was mostly stupidity and opportunism, but neither is an excuse.

I have two boys. If they spray painted anything on another's property or damaged another's property, I would let the police haul them away and make sure they got what was coming to them. They sure the heck wouldn't do it again.

That's just one humble opinion from someone who is liberal on some issues and very conservative on others. Please, don't paint everyone with a broad brush of conservatism or liberalism based upon the state in which they live. We are each made up of many things and I think most of us, thankfully, are a bit of each. That is why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors.

nj2nh

For what it's worth.... vandalism in Alton in the summer is very common. My elderly neighbor's car was tagged with some nasty profanity last summer and it seems there's always something happening at the land fill or at Jones Field on the Letter S Road. This year's soiree was just a more dramatic outbreak of the problem.

Kudos to Alton Police Department and any witnesses involved for getting to the bottom of this problem this year!

I love my little town and I hate it when we have things like this happen...

I also love this forum and hate to see people taking sides on the MA/NH (nah-nah-nah-nah-naaaaaaa-na!) thing. It's just not worth it. Why alienate people here? What's to be gained? We all have loving the Lake Winni in common - everything after that is just details.