A Rindge man and member of the local group Save Our Town has pleaded not guilty to charges that he threatened three people with a hand gun during a December road-rage incident.
Attorney Evan F. Nappen, on behalf of client Larry Cleveland, has filed an entry of not guilty plea and a waiver of arraignment by counsel with the 8th Circuit Court in Jaffrey.
Cleveland, 52, was charged with misdemeanor B level criminal threatening on March 28 by the Rindge Police Department.
The charge stems from a Dec. 10 incident where Cleveland allegedly brandished a hand gun and pointed it at another vehicle containing three people, according to a redacted affidavit obtained by the Ledger-Transcript via a public records request.
Cleveland was scheduled to appear for the first time in court on Wednesday, but the date was canceled. He is now scheduled to appear for a pre-trial conference on June 7.
The three alleged victims — one being a minor — stopped at the Rindge police station around 5:55 p.m. on the day of the incident, according to the affidavit, to report that they had just been involved in a road-rage incident where someone had pulled a gun on them.
The three reported that they had stopped at the Route 202/119 intersection in Rindge, when a newer model black Jeep Cherokee had pulled up next to them in the left-turn lane.
After a verbal altercation, the driver of the Jeep, who police later determined was Cleveland, allegedly drew a small black pistol from his lap area, pointed it at the dashboard, then at the driver of the other vehicle, then back at the dashboard, before his light turned green and he continued onto Route 202 northbound.
One of the passengers claimed that the driver had “pulled a gun and made it visible and then pointed it at us while yelling at us.”
Cleveland would later be stopped in Jaffrey, with police confirming that he was the driver of the Jeep and that he had two passengers in the Jeep with him.
Police also determined that Cleveland was carrying a permitted concealed firearm, a 9mm weapon that matched the alleged victims’ descriptions. Cleveland’s gun was “hot” with a fully loaded magazine and a round in the chamber, according to the affidavit.
Rindge police subsequently interviewed Cleveland, who admitted to being involved in a road-rage incident. Cleveland denied the firearm allegation.
Cleveland said that his firearm remained in a holster underneath his shirt and jacket, and stayed in the holster for the duration of the incident, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit quotes Cleveland as saying “I can tell you in a nutshell it was just a stupid incident by a, a 52-year-old that should have known better and a bunch of punk kids and it just turned up to just be a yelling stupid match and I should have just kept the window up, kept my mouth shut, and kept driving but they pissed me off so…”
Cleveland said he was wearing black gloves, according to the affidavit, but the witnesses in the other car said that Cleveland’s hands were ungloved.
Cleveland is a member of Save Our Town — a resident committee that originally formed about four years ago in opposition to a zoning amendment that would have created an overlay district at the intersection of Routes 119 and 202.
Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com. He is also on Twitter @nhandyMLT.