Sovereign Curtis was arrested at the Nashua 420 rally on 2010-03-23 by three undercover officers and charged with “dispensing marijuana,” a class B felony. He was held overnight at Hillsborough County Jail in Manchester awaiting arraignment. A video arraignment was held on Wednesday, 2010-03-24, in Nashua District Court between 08:30 and 12:00, and around 16:30 a Porc411 call came in announcing that Curtis had been bailed out.

The charge being a felony, the trial, if and when it takes place, will be in Hillsborough County Superior Court, most likely at the courthouse in Nashua.

The 420s were planned to be weekly events in Nashua, taking place each Tuesday, but with today’s arrests, there is talk of another rally taking place tomorrow in response. Check the Free Keene and other activists forums for updates.

Details

As soon as the arrests went down, calls started flooding into Porcupine 411 from the scene. Free Keene has video of the arrests. More video was taken, and will be posted as it becomes available.

Three undercover police had arrived in two cars that came in from behind the park, and they appeared to target Curtis directly. All were out of uniform, only wearing badges around their necks, and none would identify themselves—although there is ample video of both the officers and their unmarked vehicles, mostly blue Chevy Impalas. In addition to the unmarked vehicles, it was reported that the police had several wagons off to the side of the park, ready for multiple arrests.

After the arrests, around a dozen activists headed over to the police station to protest and continue the rally. A reporter from the Nashua Telegraph was already at the police station when several activists arrived, and the reporter who has been covering the rallies for the past few days, Dean Shalhoup, was contacted.

After pizza was ordered by the activists waiting at the police station, an officer demanded they leave and threatened to charge them all with “criminal trespassing” (in a public building) if they did not do so.

Shortly before 20:00, Bill D. and Attorney Adam Mackler went to the jail in Manchester to inquire into Curtis’ status; the jail reported that they had no one there under that name. According to the police and Porc411 calls, Curtis was not answering any questions but they did get his fingerprints, so they should be able to identify him.

Around 16:30 a Porc411 call came in from Carla G. announcing that Curtis was being bailed out.

Thanks to Bill D. for the initial Porc411 reports, and Kurt H. from Keene for providing most of this information.