Meredith Police Department mourning John Curran and John Egan

MEREDITH — John Curran, former Meredith police chief, and former juvenile officer John Egan passed away Wednesday, both leaving powerful legacies in the Lakes Region. 

“It’s really devastating to lose these legends of law enforcement in Belknap County on the same day,” said Dan Collis, former Sheriff. “Under John Curran’s time as chief, he spawned many successful law enforcement officers that both stayed there and continued on their careers in various departments in the state, many of them becoming police chiefs.”

Among those police chiefs is Laconia’s own chief Mathew Canfield.

“Chief Curran was a great guy and a great chief,” Canfield recalled. “He hired me when I was a police cadet and sent me to the part-time police academy and supported me there. He really loved the town and loved doing what he did.”

Like Canfield, Collis began his law enforcement career as patrolman under Chief Curran. Previously, Collis worked six months out of the year in Meredith as a special officer while attending college. Curran offered Collis the job of patrolman while he was still getting his degree. He was hired full-time in 1981.

“When I got my exam schedule, I told the chief, my last exam is June 1 at 8:00 a.m.,” recalled Collis, “he said, ‘come up, I'll meet you in the town hall around 1:00.’ He met me there and I was sworn in as a full time police officer.”

After swearing in, Collis asked Curran when he wanted him to start. Curran told Collis, “‘I checked with the sergeant, you’re on shift tonight at three o’clock.’ That’s how I began my full time career at the Meredith Police Department.”

Canfield credited Egan with beginning his law enforcement career early on.

“When I was in high school, John was the D.A.R.E. officer during that time. I had no aspirations of going into law enforcement,” Canfield said. “I bumped into John one day in high school. I did some stuff for graphic arts so he asked me to print some stuff for the D.A.R.E. program and to sit in as a  D.A.R.E. mentor and speak to the dare classes, and I think my sophomore year, the Meredith police department was looking for cadets. It was a summer job, walking around town, giving parking tickets, collecting launch fees at the town docks.”

Both Canfield and Collis trained under Egan in their early days at the Meredith Police Department. “John (Egan) was very hands-on, making sure that as a trainee that every detail was covered,” Collis said. “Some of the things I saw in him, he was one of those guys that developed restorative justice before it was truly a term in juvenile crime prevention.”

Egan would arrange for juvenile offenders to come down to the station to clean patrol cars and city vehicles. He’d also make officers like Collis participate, so they could get to know and understand these young offenders.

“You’d get to interact with them on a person to person basis rather than an authoritarian basis,” Collis recalled. “It was amazing how it humanized the badge, rather than these juveniles thinking all cops are the same. It taught officers and it also taught juveniles that we all have different perspectives and we can all get along.”

“His approach to dealing with troubled youth was just amazing,” Canfield said. “He would always look for the positive ways  to make it happen versus not. He would always look for the good in kids and take them under his wing. That was very admirable.”

“To me John (Egan) was my hero. He gave me the great foundation of law enforcement and provided great empathy towards the people we dealt with,” Collis said. 

Egan’s revolutionary approach with juveniles went well beyond impacting officers like Collis and the Meredith police department. 

“He went on to create and carve out the restorative justice program,” Canfield said. “He made that program what it is today. Taking kids that make the wrong choice or come from tough situations, work with them to hold them accountable but make them see their value and make them into productive kids.”