SANDISFIELD – John Cohen, of Northampton, was sitting on a blanket, eating a sandwich, surrounded by three other picnickers when a van of state troopers pulled up next to him.

The state troopers, alongside Capt. John Penniman, approached Cohen and asked him to leave his picnic spot – he was, after all, they said, trespassing.

Cohen did not think so, however. So he continued with his picnic, a picnic that plopped Cohen in the middle of a pipeline project access road.

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