With all the recent news about police shootings and associated protests, I couldn’t help but to reflect on how things have changed since July 18, 2009. On that date my 24-year-old son had been drinking and should not have been driving. However, he was. As he drove thru Swanzey, N.H. that early evening, he pulled over into the empty parking lot of the clinic there to relieve himself. He stepped out, with the car door open and car still running. A Swanzey police officer had received a call about Jeff’s driving and pulled in behind Jeff.
Jeff ignored the officer, never spoke to him nor made any aggressive move toward him. He finished, and sat into his vehicle, door still open, probably to get his license and registration.
For whatever reason, Officer Eccelston, decided to escalate the situation and reached into the open door to grab Jeff. The car shifted into drive and headed to the road.
Officer Eccelston then pulled out his gun and shot Jeff through his shoulder into his heart, killing Jeff. The officer fell out of the car, got up and continued to fire at Jeff as the car rolled across the road and down into the ditch. The officer was taken to the Keene hospital for a sprained wrist and released.
After a quick investigation by the New Hampshire State Police and the New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General of only a couple of days, the Assistant Attorney General issued a statement on July 23 that the shooting was justified due to New Hampshire law that allowed anytime an officer is fearful of being injured or feared for his life, he was justified in firing his weapon. No protests occurred for this shooting.
We worked with a large law firm from Concord, New Hampshire on this case on a contingency fee basis. However, we were still requesting additional documents from the state up to July 2012. This was the month that the three-year Statue of Limitations expired. One of the items we never got was a copy of the 911 calls and associated time of the calls. We were told that the Cheshire County 911 Dispatch clock was not working that night. Additionally, the law firm, after two years, notified us that it was not a good financial risk for their law firm to go after a New Hampshire police officer and backed out of the contingency fee basis. At that time it was too late to get another law firm on the case.
Now jump forward 11 years to the present. Thankfully things have improved with the recent attention on police shootings. Now any shooting is thoroughly investigated with a lot of questions, including — Was the shooting really necessary? Was there way to de-escalate the situation, instead of escalating it? Why didn’t he use his taser instead of his gun?
A similar situation occurred within a few days of Jeff’s, with a drunk driver at the Greenfield MacDonald’s. The Greenfield police de-escalated the situation and talked to the person until he got out of his car. That person was allowed to live.
It is still my opinion that the majority, over 98%, of the 800,000 police officers in this country do a good job, with many of them never drawing their guns and less actual firing them. However, as has been discussed all over the country, there are a few bad apples that have the tendency to draw their weapons and fire way to quick. We need to get rid of them.
Officer Eccleston was allowed to return to work and got a promotion. We have missed Jeff everyday for the last 11 years. Thank goodness, things they are a changing.
Bill Richardson is a resident of Northfield.