[420 Girl]

Nashua police used YouTube and help from other area police departments to arrest two more people involved in a large protest of marijuana laws on Library Hill last month.

On Friday night, State Police arrested James Johnson, 54, of Winchester, on warrants for disorderly conduct issued by Nashua police after the March 20 protest.

On Saturday, Manchester police arrested Michael Tiner, 36, at his 159 Cartier St. home around noontime, police said, on similar warrants from Nashua police.

Nashua Sgt. Kerry Baxter said Tiner refused the services of a bail commissioner and was transported to the Hillsborough County Department of Corrections in Manchester pending today’s scheduled arraignment in Nashua District Court.

Johnson likewise refused bail services after his arrest and was taken to the Cheshire County jail pending arraignment at Nashua District Court next week, Nashua police Sgt. Denis Linehan said.

Johnson, Tiner and at least one other person clashed with police during the protest by refusing to get out of the street and refusing to stop yelling and get out of the way of a police cruiser, according to Linehan.

“These three individuals were identified as being extremely disorderly,” he said.

The trio were not arrested at the time, Linehan said, because the arresting officers were outnumbered and dealing with an already agitated crowd. More arrests would only have made the situation more volatile, he said.

“We were trying to deal with the situation with as little chance of any kind of altercation (as possible),” Linehan said.

Instead, police later studied videos that several of the protesters posted on the Internet, including on YouTube.com, and with the help of police in Keene, Milford and Manchester, identified the three people they charged with disorderly conduct, Linehan said.

Protesters spent about a week gathering on Library Hill around 4:20 p.m., holding signs, waving to passing motorists and sometimes smoking marijuana out of pipes, bongs and joints.

The first protest, on March 20, was the largest and attracted police, who arrested three people. Lewis Labitue, 17, of Nashua, was charged with possession of a controlled drug; Nicholas Krouse, 28, of Keene, was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest; and Catherine Bleish, the executive director of The Liberty Restoration Project. Bleish, 25, of Kansas City, Mo., was charged with disorderly conduct. All charges are Class A misdemeanors.

The next Tuesday, police arrested another man, who refused to give police his name, after he allegedly handed an undercover officer a joint, Linehan said.

After the arrests, protesters descended on the Nashua Police Department, filling the lobby, waiting for their compatriots to be released. Several protesters have decried what they call brutal police tactics against peaceful protesters.

Linehan has said protests are not a problem for police unless participants become unruly or use illegal drugs.

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