An 18-year-old Massachusetts driver led New Hampshire State Police on not one but two high-speed chases Friday night, hitting over 100 mph with alcohol in the car — and his passenger is already out on bail.
Justin Jedrey of Belmont was arrested after twice refusing to stop for troopers on I-95 north in Greenland, according to New Hampshire State Police. A trooper first tried to pull over the gray Hyundai Elantra around 9:40 p.m. after clocking it at more than 100 mph. Jedrey ran. The trooper backed off in the interest of public safety. Then troopers spotted the car again, tried again, and Jedrey ran again — forcing police to block him with their cruisers and deploy tire deflation devices just to end it, causing minor damage to police vehicles in the process.
The charges are serious: reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, criminal mischief, disobeying a police officer, and transportation of alcoholic beverages by a minor. His passenger, 18-year-old Nikol Muka, also of Belmont, was cited for unlawful possession and intoxication, MassLive reported.
Jedrey is being held on preventive detention pending arraignment. Muka is already out on bail, scheduled to appear in court September 28.
Here is the part the institutional press won't say: this is what a culture without consequences produces. An 18-year-old doesn't flee police at 100 mph twice in one night unless he believes the stakes are low. And why wouldn't he? Progressive jurisdictions have spent years hollowing out enforcement, decriminalizing offenses, and replacing accountability with social-emotional reasoning. The math is simple: when you teach young people that their feelings matter more than their actions, you get young people who act like consequences don't exist.
Belmont is a wealthy Boston suburb — the kind of place that votes for the politicians who gut discipline and then wonders why its teenagers treat I-95 like a drag strip with a cooler in the back seat.
NBC10 Boston and MassLive both reported the facts straight. Neither outlet touched the obvious question: what culture produces an 18-year-old willing to endanger the public, resist law enforcement, and transport alcohol as a minor — all in the same Friday night? The Press of Atlantic City ran a completely unrelated DWI brief. NBC News covered an entirely different murder case. The silence on the root cause is the story.
Nobody was hurt this time. That is luck, not policy. Next time — and there will be a next time — the math may not hold. The question isn't whether Jedrey deserves punishment. The question is whether any institution left in this country still has the spine to deliver it.
