A drug deal gone awry last Friday preceded the firing of a .45 caliber handgun outside a home in Warner and a subsequent road rage incident on Interstate 89, a New Hampshire State Police sergeant testified.
Detective Sgt. Eric Shirley said four men met up at a residence on Route 103 in Warner sometime after midnight last Friday. One of the men later told police he went there to buy $40 worth of heroin. But after the deal, he received an anonymous call that the drugs he’d bought were possibly fake, prompting him to return to the residence a few hours later, according to police.
Multiple 911 calls reported gunfire in the area shortly before 7:30 a.m. Police say one of the four men, Daniel Bernard, 35, of Wilmot, fired the .45 caliber handgun twice outside the residence after some sort of altercation. Bernard, whose gun was seized from his holster at the time of his arrest after the reported road rage pursuit, appeared in Merrimack County Superior Court on Wednesday for the second time since Feb. 21 to argue for his release on bail conditions.
Judge Brian Tucker ultimately agreed to set bail in the amount of $5,000 cash-only, on the condition that the county’s pretrial services program supervise Bernard, who must live at a pre-approved address. Before his release, the court will hold a “source of funds” hearing to ensure that Bernard is not using proceeds from drug sales or other criminal activity to post bail. Bernard is prohibited from leaving the state or possessing any firearms.
Shirley testified during Wednesday’s hearing that the circumstances surrounding the two separate drug-related interactions in a wooden shed on the Route 103 property remain under investigation. It remains unclear if Bernard was threatened or why he fired the gun, and if any gunfire was actually exchanged on I-89 as first reported, Shirley said.
Since last Friday, police have executed search warrants for the shed, where they seized drug paraphernalia, in addition to two vehicles – one of which Bernard was driving and a second of which was carrying a BB gun and a “fist-sized” bag of tan-colored powder believed to be fentanyl.
“In that area, if it was cut appropriately, it would be worth somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000,” Shirley told the court during Wednesday’s hearing.
Assistant Merrimack County Attorney Matthew Flynn called Shirley and New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Daniel Baldassarre to the stand in support of his argument that Bernard should continue to be detained pending trial on a felony charge of reckless conduct. He said police have ballistic evidence directly linking Bernard to the crime and maintained that Bernard’s actions that day put innocent lives in harm’s way.
Conversely, defense attorney Ted Barnes called for Bernard’s release from jail on $5,000 bail, arguing that his client has no violent criminal history. He said the facts presented by the prosecution were cloudy at best, as there is no proof at this time that a gun was fired on I-89 as the criminal complaint against Bernard alleges. Further, he said, the thousands of dollars worth of drugs were found in the other vehicle.
“There is no evidence that he’s the bad guy here, beyond that he fired a couple of shots at people who’d just threatened him,” Barnes said.
During his testimony, Shirley disagreed with Barnes who asserted that Bernard may have fired the gun in self-defense. He clarified that John LaSaun Miller, who was likely in some sort of dispute with Bernard, had walked away from the situation and was driving away from the residence at the time Bernard fired.
Bernard then got in his Chevy Sonic with a resident of the property and pursued Miller on I-89, police said.
Police have charged Miller, 37, whose address is listed as homeless, with criminal threatening in connection with the Feb. 21 incident, and he is now free on bail conditions. On the morning of the incident, he was traveling in a Kia Optima, which officers pulled over at the Park-and-Ride on Clinton Street in Concord. From the Kia, police seized a BB gun and the bag of drugs, which have been sent to the state lab for testing.
A trooper pulled over Bernard’s Chevy Sonic on Route 3A in Bow near Pitco. Bernard was then taken into custody.
According to a police affidavit, Bernard denied firing two rounds from his handgun last Friday but said he had fired it the day before.
However, a witness told police she saw a white man, matching Bernard’s description, attempting to conceal a black handgun behind his thigh as he walked to the front of the house on Route 103 in Warner and shot at the Kia as it drove away.