Lawmakers seek answers from Vermont State Police

­­Editor’s note: This story was written by Cindy Ellen Hill, a law and policy writer and attorney in Middlebury.

Levi Duclos, 19, died on Jan. 9, 2012, on the Emily Proctor Trail in Ripton. Photo courtesy of the Addison Independent

Sen. Vince Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans, has proposed the creation of a study committee to address criticism of the Vermont State Police response to the report of missing hiker Levi Duclos, 19, of New Haven, who was found dead on Jan. 10.

The purpose of the proposed study is to determine what agency should have the authority for supervising search and rescue operations for missing persons in outdoor recreational areas.

Vermont is one of only a handful of states that gives the state police sole authority to conduct back country search and rescue operations. Other states allow game wardens and volunteer groups to conduct searches.

The bill calls for the formation of a Back Country Search and Rescue Study Committee comprised of representatives of the Department of Public Safety, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, Vermont Forest, Parks and Recreation, civilians with experience in search and rescue, and a first responder. Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, is a co-sponsor of the proposal.

Levi Duclos was reported as an overdue hiker to Vermont State Police on the evening of Monday, Jan. 9. Police initiated a ground search on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 10, during which Duclos was found dead on the Emily Proctor Trail on the Green Mountain National Forest in Ripton. The Department of Public Safety has not yet released the autopsy or police reports or indicated a cause of death.

According to Sen. Harold Giard, D-Addison, the Vermont Legislature is keenly watching the Vermont State Police response.

“We in the Legislature have been watching the developments on this and believe that the VSP has had time to evaluate their procedures for how they respond when someone is lost or hasn’t returned from a hunting or hiking trip,” Giard said.

Vermont House Speaker Shap Smith requested a response from Commissioner of Public Safety Keith Flynn last week. In a closed-door meeting at the Statehouse, Public Safety Deputy Commissioner John Wood met with members of the House. So many representatives attended the meeting that some, like Giard, were turned away.

“There were so many legislators in there because everyone is very upset by this,” Giard said. “This is not the way Vermont does things.”

The Legislature’s concern is not limited to the state police search and rescue response, Giard said.

“There is a bit of arrogance in the Vermont State Police, and not a small bit either,” Giard said. “I have noticed this in other areas, for example, they are more and more using unmarked cars for their traffic stops, and that’s too KGB-ish for me. If you use a marked cruiser, traffic slows down and the public safety is protected. When you use an unmarked car, its sole purpose is to sneak up and catch people, and that shows a lack of community respect on their part, and a lack of self-confidence and leadership in the institution.

“They are getting too insulated in their culture, and that needs to break down. They’ve got an issue, and they need to deal with it and they need to remember who they work for and who they serve.”

Salisbury hikers

Vermont State Police responses to other search and rescue cases — instances that have not ended in tragedy — have also been called into question by critics.

Late in the evening on Sept. 23, Middlebury College Security called the Middlebury Police Department to report that two female college students had left at 4 p.m. for a hike to the Falls of Lana. The parking area for the Falls of Lana trail is on the Green Mountain National Forest in Salisbury, near Lake Dunmore. The two had dinner plans but had not returned.

“Salisbury is the Vermont State Police’s area of jurisdiction,” said Sgt. Jason Covey of the Middlebury Police Department. “We called VSP to ask them to check for the vehicle in the parking area while our officers interviewed the hikers’ friends, trying to obtain more information.”

Middlebury gave the state police a description of the vehicle gleaned from the missing women’s friends. “It took a while, but they called back and said, ‘The car’s not here,” Covey said. Another Middlebury Police Department officer, Peter Newton, lives near the trailhead and, hearing the radio chatter, took it upon himself to go look in the parking lot.

“He goes and checks, and there is one car in the lot, and he runs the plate, and it’s theirs,” Covey said.

The autumn night was relatively warm, but raining, and police had been advised the women were wearing shorts. “We were obviously concerned,” Covey said. “Now we know they are missing, and they are in Salisbury, somewhere up the mountain. So we called VSP and said, ‘There are lost hikers on your mountain.’ We were told by the shift commander that it wasn’t their case.” The state police told Covey that since the hikers originated at Middlebury College, they were the problem of the Middlebury Police Department.

“It doesn’t matter to me the protocol, we have two people missing on that mountain so these two agencies should be working together,” Covey said. “My common sense bone tells me that these two women maybe left too late, maybe got injured. No matter whose case it is, I’m not comfortable leaving two young women on the mountain overnight in the rain. The VSP duty supervisor said that Search and Rescue won’t come out at night, but that he’d make a few calls and see if he could get approval to assist.”

Covey advised the state police that Middlebury Police officers were going to go walk the trail with or without state police assistance. Calling Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley at home for approval, Covey and Peter Newton left Middlebury for Salisbury shortly after midnight. “The chief agrees with me, we don’t care whose case it is, we can’t leave the girls out there all night in the rain without doing something. The least we can do is walk the trail with flashlights and call their names.”

While Covey and Newton were en route, the Vermont State Police called them and asked for a status update. When Covey replied that they were on the way to the trailhead, state police requested that they wait as a trooper was on his way to speak to them. About a half an hour later, according to Covey, a state police sergeant arrived and started asking them a lot of questions.

“It’s at least 1 a.m. now,” Covey said, “and the trooper says he has to make some more phone calls. He makes some calls up his chain of command and tells me they say they’ll send Search and Rescue over tomorrow at 10 a.m.”

The two Middlebury Police officers searched the trails around the Falls of Lana in the rain until 4 a.m. Reaching the top of the mountain at Silver Lake they awakened a volunteer campground ranger who drove them around all the campsites and back down to the falls. They did not locate the two women, but coming out of the woods near dawn they found the Vermont State Police sergeant sitting in his cruiser in the parking lot. Covey went home for a few hours’ sleep, and upon arriving back at work at 8:30 a.m., learned that the two women had walked out of the woods at 7:30 a.m., with bumps and bruises but otherwise safe.

“We did all we could that night with two people,” Covey said. “I could not have slept that night knowing those two were out there without at least going looking for them.”

A family in Ripton

In October 2011, the Lincoln Fire Company received a call about a family lost in the Green Mountain National Forest, in the same network of trails on which Levi Duclos was walking, according to the Lincoln fire chief. The call did not come from the 9-1-1 dispatcher or the Vermont State Police but rather from the proprietor of the Lincoln General Store.

“VSP had shown up and wanted to set up a forward command post at the Lincoln General Store,” explained Dan Ober, chief of the Lincoln Fire Company and Lincoln First Responders. “The proprietor of the store told them they needed to call us about that.”

The call came in during late afternoon hours, with a bout of inclement weather predicted for that night. “It was a family from New Jersey with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old,” Ober said. “They had somehow gotten confused about thinking the trail was a loop, and walked straight on a long way. So I asked the state police if they had a cell phone on them, and the trooper told me they did. VSP had pinged the phone and knew where they were. So I asked if VSP had called them, and they had not.”

Ober did what he characterizes as the obvious thing: “I called them, talked to the guy, determined that they could still see their tracks and the trail, so I just told them to turn around and walk back the way they came and we’d send somebody up to meet them, which we did. So it was kind of laughable, really, but if they’d stayed out overnight with a storm coming in it could well have turned into a tragic situation.”

The Middlebury Police Department and Lincoln First Responders actions are in keeping with Vermont community values, according to Giard. “The Vermont way is you put boots on the ground when someone is missing. You go look for them. There’s obviously a good chance, with an experienced hiker who is reported has having not returned when expected, that the hiker is injured or lost or suffered some mishap,” Giard said. “I am seething over what happened with Levi Duclos, a bright young man with all his future in front of him. We failed him miserably.”