Londonderry News

This story originally appeared in the Union Leader and was republished here with permission.

Homicide investigation follows hours-long Londonderry standoff

By Eli Okun
Union Leader Correspondent

LONDONDERRY – Police are investigating a homicide after a hours-long standoff at a home at 2 Currier Drive.

Jeff Strelzin, head of the state’s homicide unit, arrived at the scene about 4 p.m. and investigators are obtaining a search warrant for the home.

The state police Major Crime Unit is at the scene and expected to take over the case.

Pillsbury Road, which had been closed from Currier Drive to Moose Hill Elementary School since about 11 a.m., reopened to traffic about 2:30 p.m.

At the 2 Currier Drive home, Londonderry police, state police and SWAT team members could be seen walking around the property mid-afternoon. A City Fuel van, which neighbors said had been at the home since the morning, was still parked in the driveway.

Local police declined to provide information about whether anybody had been injured or killed.

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This article originally appeared in the Derry News and was republished here with permission.

Police: impaired driver crashes into Londonderry restaurant

By Kiera Blessing

An impaired driver crashed his vehicle into a Londonderry restaurant Wednesday afternoon, resulting in his arrest.

The 37-year-old crashed into Cafe Teresa on Route 102 at 4:41 p.m., said Londonderry Fire Battalion Chief Jim Roger. No one was injured in the accident.

The driver told police and fire officials he had pulled into a parking space and thought his vehicle was in park, but it was apparently still in drive.

Police spoke with the driver before administering a field sobriety test in the restaurant’s parking lot. The officers then arrested the driver, who has not yet been identified.

It is not clear what charges the driver is facing.

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Recently, the Londonderry Police Department released their annual report to the Town Manager. Outlining the previous year’s activities throughout Town, the report covered everything from the number of internal affairs incidents that were reported to use of force incidents. A brief overview of the report follows.

During the year 2015, Londonderry Police responded to 23,833 incidents, including:

• 1,004 accidents
• 910 arrests
• 9,199 motor vehicle activities
• 3,669 police reports taken’

There were zero employee grievances or biased/gender based policing reports during the year. Two internal affair reports, five administrative reviews, three employee complaints, and 17 use of force incidents were reported. Given the number of incidents and arrests throughout the year, this is only 1.9% of arrests involving use of force and only 0.4% generating complaints, internal affair issues, or administrative reviews.

Regarding the 17 use of force incidents, only four of them required the office to draw a weapon. 70% of the incidents involved suspects that were under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time, six suspects sustained minor injuries, and four police officers were injured.

For the complete report, or more details about the incidents, click here.

The Londonderry Police are currently dealing with a major increase in credit card and bank account related fraud. At this current time, Officers and Detectives are handing up to ten calls of this nature every week. The increase in these particular crimes has been going on over the past several months and can be attributed to the recent advances in technology, the access to necessary equipment to pull off these crimes, and the ease of finding online instruction manuals.

The most prevalent of these crimes is the re-encoding of Visa Vanilla gift cards using unsuspecting victim’s information to supply the fraudulent gift cards with available funds. In cases like this, the criminal obtains your information and can actually manipulate the metallic information strip on gift cards with the stolen information. The gift card is then linked to a credit card or bank account and can be used anywhere Visa Vanilla gift cards are accepted, which is almost everywhere. The biggest reason why gift cards are being sued is because you do not have to show any identification and it is a generic card with no name on it. This makes it very difficult to identify and prosecute suspects as well.

The criminals are obtaining your personal information, credit card information, and bank account information in a variety of ways. Some of those ways are through online hacks, telephone or email scams, and ATM “skimming” devices. Please pay close attention to your banking accounts as well as your credit cards and credit report. “Skimming” devices are typically placed on ATM machines and are difficult to detect with the naked eye. They are designed to fit over the card entry slot. The device is equipped with technology that can read your information off the magnetic strip on the card and transfer it to a computer instantly. Any suspicious activity should be reported to both the financial institution as well as police at 603-432-1118. For more information on skimming devices, click here.