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State v. Englesbe10/11/2000
42 N.H. 382, 385, 701 A.2d 1240, 1242 (1997) (quotation omitted). If the legislature intended to limit the circumstances under which towns could agree to provide mutual aid, it could easily have drafted the statute to do so. Cf. RSA 106-C:2 (1990) (permitting the provision of mutual aid by law or ordinance "during, and only during, periods of emergency" (emphasis added)).
We cannot examine the phrase "in an emergency situation" in isolation, as the defendant urges. Instead, we must examine it in the context of the whole statute. N.H. Div. of Human Services v. Hahn, 133 N.H. 776, 778, 584 A.2d 775, 776 (1990). Viewing RSA 105:13 as a whole, we find no limitation on the mutual aid agreements into which towns may enter. The third sentence of the statute, beginning with the phrase "in an emergency situation," merely makes clear that a prior mutual aid agreement may be invoked by oral request in an emergency. Therefore, we hold that RSA 105:13 does not condition the provision of mutual aid on an emergency, but rather grants individual police departments the discretion to enter into and define the terms and conditions of their mutual aid agreements.
Affirmed.
BRODERICK and NADEAU, JJ., concurred; GROFF and MANGONES, JJ., superior court justices, specially assigned under RSA 490:3, concurred.
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