N.H. police react to death penalty decision

December 22, 2008 11:15 AM

By Ray Duckler
Concord Monitor

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Manchester police Chief David Mara once worked the city’s downtown streets, sometimes meeting Officer Michael Briggs at a crime scene while both were on patrol.

He said Briggs, a bicycle patrolman from Concord, was a good listener, genuinely interested in what others had to say. He said Briggs had no obligation to respond just before 3 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2006, a cool, clear night at theof his shift.

And he said Michael Addison, a 28-year-old man with a troubled past, got what he deserved yesterday when a jury sentenced him to die for killing Briggs.

“I feel good about the justice system in New Hampshire,” Mara said from police headquarters. “I think the system worked here. He had nine weeks of trial; he got to present his case. Twelve citizens sacrificed their personal lives, they heard everything, they were attentive, they heard all the evidence and what everybody had to say. I think it was fair, it was just and it was the right thing to do.”

Mara sat in the police conference room, upstairs from busy Chestnut Street. He wore a crisp, white shirt with shiny buttons, badges and identification tags, the bright lights above reflecting sharply off each.

His piercing, dark eyes told you the serious nature of the conversation. A cop had been killed, and now the killer is scheduled to pay with his own life, the first person sentenced to die in this state in 50 years.

“People who’ve seen the Briggs family in the courtroom, (Addison) handed them a life sentence,” Mara said. “They were very close to their son. He was a son, a father, a brother.”

Briggs was a 35-year-old father of two young boys. He was a five- year veteran

of Manchester’s police force when Addison whirled and shot him in the head, completing a resume of violent crime that read far too long.

Mara was oblivious to the historical significance of the verdict, saying, “I haven’t even thought about that. The only thing I thought about was our brother officer getting murdered, and that person is now going to pay the just price.”

Finding a Manchester police officer to comment on yesterday’s decision proved difficult. Cops out on their beats deferred questions to the chief and spokespeople inside the downtown office.

Out on the streets, residents, both black and white, had different views, with no real pattern emerging. Not like it did when O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder 13 years ago.

Robert Gagnon, a cabbie with a gravelly voice, said justice was served.

“He got what he deserved,” Gagnon said. “He planned what he was going to do. He told his friends. It was all proven. In this case, it’s going to protect the police force. . . . Otherwise they’re going to say we can shoot a police officer and just do jail time and we can live with that.”

Up two blocks, near the intersection of Chestnut and Merrimack streets, Will Delker, a senior assistant attorney general, walked with attorney general Kelly Ayotte and others. They were going to lunch, shortly after the death sentence was announced.

Delker threw everything he had into this case, delivering passionate pleas to the jury throughout. He was asked if the death sentence will deter others in the future.

“I think so, yes,” Delker said. “It sends an important message that there are lines in society that we can’t cross. This is one of them.”

Ashley Rodriguez is a 17-year-old senior at Manchester Central High. She turned 180 degrees from Delker.

“I don’t think the death penalty is good,” Rodriguez said. “He killed someone, but it’s not fair, because he has a family, too, and it’s not fair to kill someone. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Meanwhile, Nicole Jones, a student at the University of New Hampshire Manchester, and her mother, Lula Harris, remembered Briggs. He was the officer who cared, the one who listened, the one who made his presence felt during that awful fire on Pearl Street last April.

“He came and talked to me one day,” Harris said. “I was sitting in the park and somebody was out there making a racket and he came by to make sure I was okay.”

“He served the community,” Jones added. “He was the best officer in this community, the best. He risked his life to save people in the fire, over on Pearl Street.”

Still, both said that Addison’s penalty was too harsh, that prison was the way to go.

“I hope they could have given him life in prison,” Harris said. “That’s enough punishment for anybody, to stand behind bars all day long.”

Minutes later, near the police station, officer John McInerney talked on his cell phone and parked along Merrimack Street. He got out of his white cruiser and headed toward the tinted glass front doors, near the granite monument with the names of the four Manchester cops killed in the line of duty.

He was interrupted for a comment on Addison’s death sentence. He told the person on the phone to hold on.

“Thrilled,” McInerney said, with sincerity and passion.

“Thrilled.”

Then he got back on the phone and disappeared inside.