By DanO’BrienHooksett police officer Jason Defina, the school resource officer who was reassigned last spring despite community objections, was fired by the Hooksett Police Commission on Sept. 8. Defina, 35, a Marine Corps veteran who has been with the Police Department since 1999, said he plans a legal fight to get his job back. “I ...

By Lauren Sausser Hooksett Police Chief Steve Agrafiotis made no indication of whether he’d reinstate former school resource officer Jason Defina into that position again, even after two teenage girls pleaded for him to do so at a Police Commission meeting on July 21. “(Officer Defina) really has made an impact on our school,” ...

By Ginger Kozlowski The Hooksett Police Department has removed officer Jason Defina as the town’s school resource officer, putting Sgt. Gary Blanchette in the position as of Aug. 13. Defina has served as the school resource officer since April 2008. Until last fall, there appeared to be no problems with his performance, but then he was ...

By Lauren Sausser School resource officer Jason Defina is back to work after an extended suspension from the Hooksett Police Department for what his superiors deemed incompetence and untruthfulness. Defina was suspended without pay for more than 20 days since January. He recently received a total of three-and-a-half days of back pay after ...

By Lauren Sausser The Merrimack County Sheriff’s Department will conduct an independent investigation of the Hooksett Police Department in order to determine if officers knowingly attempted to conceal safe school reports filed by the school resource officer last year. Hooksett Police Commission Chairman David Gagnon ordered the ...

BY LAUREN SAUSSERAccording to safe school reports recently released by the Hooksett Police Department, eight counts of confiscated knives and reported knife possession by Cawley Middle School students have been filed during the past two school years. Nearly 50 safe school reports, all filed since late 2007, were released to Hooksett School Board ...

BY LAUREN SAUSSERHooksett schools will operate without the full-time presence of school resource officer Jason Defina until Jan. 19 – the date when Defina’s temporary suspension from the Hooksett Police Department will be lifted. For reasons that have not been made public, Defina has been suspended without pay from the Hooksett Police ...

BY LAUREN SAUSSEROct. 31 happened to be one of many Cawley Middle School eighth-graders’ favorite day of the year. But not because it was Halloween. More than 200 students gathered on the soccer field, and all were dressed in a rainbow of colors – depending on their assigned homeroom classes. Each group was belting out an original ...

BY LAUREN SAUSSERIn the 1950s, when Hooksett resident Kathie Northrup was only an elementary school student, she said she can remember when there was little more on Route 28 Bypass than a small three-room schoolhouse, a few houses and swampland. “It was a swamp,” said Northrup, referring to the land where the Kmart Plaza currently ...

BY LAUREN SAUSSERAs more than 650 new freshmen moved into Southern New Hampshire University’s dormitories on Sunday, Aug. 31, the Hooksett campus was still in the throes of preparing itself to accommodate students for the academic year. According to Scott Kalicki, vice president of student affairs for the university, this school year will ...