The death of Kenneth Howe on Thanksgiving Eve shows the risks inherent in bringing people into conflict with law enforcement unnecessarily. Police resources are better used in pursuit of those blatantly breaking the law, rather than herding the citizenry through a DUI checkpoint and requiring them to prove their innocence.
Howe, 45, was a passenger in a vehicle stopped Nov. 25 at a sobriety DUI checkpoint set up on Route 114 in North Andover directly in front of The Eagle-Tribune building.
A spokesman for District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office said police observed Howe making furtive movements inside the vehicle and asked him to step out of the car. Instead, the DA's spokesman says, Howe jumped out the window and struck a trooper. He attempted to flee but was caught and subdued on the front lawn of the newspaper's offices.
A lawyer representing Howe's family said he was trying to dispose of a marijuana cigarette and put his seat belt on when his vehicle came upon the roadblock. A female state trooper approached the truck, and Howe held both hands up and tried to explain that the cigarette was all he had in his hand, attorney Frances King said. King says the trooper reached into the vehicle to try to pull Howe out and claimed Howe assaulted her.
Howe was arrested and charged with assault and battery on a police officer.
Howe was taken to the state police barracks in Andover for booking. There he "slumped over and was unresponsive," district attorney spokesman Steve O'Connell said in a statement. Howe was taken to Lawrence General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The medical examiner's office in Boston last week issued an updated death certificate for Howe stating the cause of death was "blunt impact of head and torso with compression of chest," and that the injury occurred because he "struggled with police."
The "manner of death" was a "homicide" with clogged arteries and heart disease as "other contributory conditions."
"Homicide," as the medical examiner uses the term, means the death happened at the hands of another, not necessarily that a murder occurred.
An independent investigation into the actions of police at the roadblock is needed. While it is true that Howe should not have struggled with police, whatever minor infractions he committed that night certainly did not warrant his death.
Further, we need an independent investigation into the effectiveness and appropriateness of sobriety checkpoints. The number of officers deployed at a DUI checkpoint monitoring traffic on a single road might better serve public safety by patrolling a number of highways and pulling over those drivers actually seen committing offenses.
Kenneth Howe should not have died that November night. It is clear that both the actions of police and the policy of using sobriety DUI checkpoints contributed to his death.
