MANCHESTER, NH – Alderman-at-Large Joe Levasseur is suing the Manchester police Department for not giving him a copy of a video recording of an interview with a parking enforcement officer, with whom Levasseur had a dispute last January, because it was recorded on an officer’s body-worn camera, which the city maintains is exempt under the Right-to-Know law.
Levasseur’s petition for public records was to be heard July 21, 2021, in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District but the case was dismissed by Judge David Anderson after Levasseur was a no-show. The court contacted his office that morning and waited for him to appear for more than 30 minutes before the city’s attorney, Attorney Brian J.S. Cullen of Nashua, asked the court to dismiss the case. Cullen said he had worked on the city’s response over the weekend and appeared as required and felt the case should be dismissed. The judge agreed.
Later that day, Levasseur filed a motion in which he apologized to the judge and Cullen and asked the judge to reconsider his order. In court documents, Levasseur said he missed the hearing date, “seemingly confusing it with the defendant’s appearance and answer date. Missing the hearing was certainly not intentional and if necessary, Petitioner will re-file and reserve his 91A case,” he wrote in his motion.
The city, in responding to Levasseur’s lawsuit, cited the Right-to-Know law regarding body-worn cameras and listed the only exemptions to the law as recordings depicting any restraint or use of force, the discharge of a firearm or a felony-level offense.
“The plain language of this statute thus clearly precludes production of the recording,” Cullen wrote.
The recording Levasseur wants stems from an incident on Jan. 26, 2021, in which he was issued a ticket for parking in a zone reserved for city buses on Elm Street. He contended he was on city business that day and had placed his city-issued placard, identifying him as an alderman, on his dashboard. The placard frees an alderman from paying parking fees while on city business.
He paid the $50 ticket because, he told Manchester Ink Link in February, he realized after that he was parked in a no-parking zone, a sign he had not seen when parking in the spot.
Parking enforcement officer Robin Dunmyer issued the ticket. On Jan. 28, 2021, she filed a complaint with Manchester police in which she said Levasseur came running out of the Pint restaurant and said, “What the fuck are you doing? I can’t believe you’re doing this. Do you know who the hell I am?”
Manchester Ink Link obtained a copy of the report last February after filing a Right-to-Know request although both the alderman’s and the city employee’s names are blacked out.
Officer Morgan Lovejoy interviewed Dunmyer, recording it in the lobby of the police station using his body cam.
She told police a man came “flying” out of The Pint, 111 Elm St., that day and began yelling, swearing at her and pointing at the aldermanic placard on his dashboard.
As Levasseur and the parking control officer were talking, a city bus was trying to load passengers, but it was partially obstructing traffic on Elm Street because it could not pull all the way into the designated bus parking zone because of Levasseur’s illegally parked car, according to the police report.
Dunmyer said she repeatedly tried to explain to Levasseur why she issued him the ticket, but he kept yelling at her. She said there was “no way to reason with him.” He asked her about five times for her name, but the city’s policy is not to give out names. She did repeatedly give him her badge number.
Dunmyer, after placing the ticket on the windshield, took a photograph of it, per procedure. She said Levasseur then took out his cell phone and began taking photos of her, asking her how she liked having her picture taken. He said he was going to post it on Facebook.
She told him she was not taking photos of him but of his vehicle.
When Levasseur began taking her photo, she walked away and headed to her office at the Victory Parking Garage, 25 Vine St., where she reported the incident to her supervisor and completed a formal complaint. Levasseur did not follow her.
Dunmyer said Levasseur intimidated her, describing him as “nuts.”
In court documents seeking the video, Levasseur said a month after the incident he learned of the police investigation. He said he was never asked for his side of the story so the police report contained Dunmyer’s “absurd fabrications.” He said after police released the report to the media, he learned the parking attendant is the sister of a former police officer Levasseur had a hand in getting released from his employment at the Manchester Police Department.
Levasseur, in court records, said he filed a Right-to-Know request with the police department because he was “suspicious of the motives of Dunmyer and others involved in a ticket the petitioner had paid without complaint.”
He obtained most of the information he requested but police refused to release the video. “Dunmyer’s statement just happened to be taken by police with a body camera at police headquarters even though interview rooms with cameras are available,” he wrote in court documents.
Levasseur said Dunmyer did not want to make any public statements to police or the media unless she was guaranteed anonymity.
He contends the MPD found a “circuitous way to take her (Dunmyer’s) statement by body camera so a police report could be generated and given to the press, while also keeping Dunmyer’s name redacted and her video statement suppressed from a 91a request.”
Capt. Peter Marr, in an April 12, 2021, letter to Levasseur cited the Right-to-Know law for not releasing the video and said releasing it “would constitute an invasion of privacy.”
Levasseur maintains the “invasion of privacy” exception fails because Dunmyer is a city employee; she drafted an email to her boss with her name in the email which was sent to the mayor’s office “within 15 minutes of it being sent to Dunmyer’s boss”; the email was then sent from the mayor herself to one of her staff members; sent to two sitting aldermen with her name in it; and the police report also contains her name.
He also said a video from the Manchester Transit Authority shows him and Dunmyer having a conversation about the ticket. “She is clearly seen in the video and those that know her, would know who she is,” he wrote.
The judge has yet to issue an order concerning whether he will hear the issue.
