Editor’s note: This op-ed is by William Boardman of Woodstock. He produced “The Panther Program” on VPR for over a decade and served 20 years as a Windsor County side judge.
You and your friends are on their way to a fancy dinner party and there are too many pedestrians in the way of your vehicle, so you do the natural thing, you sic the police on them.
Really?
Really. In Burlington, Vermont. Really.
Late Sunday afternoon, July 29, four tour buses carrying a reported 200 or so people attending the conference of American governors and Canadian premiers from their hotel to a fancy private dinner at tax-subsidized Shelburne Farms, were blocked from entering the hotel’s front entrance by 60-70 protesters, according to the Burlington Police Department.
When the buses moved to a side entrance, they were again held up by a peaceful group of about 25 people standing with banners stretched across the driveway where, about 20 feet away, the busfull of diners was waiting to get out and taking pictures of the scene while they waited.
The banners read “Give Class War a Chance” and “Resist Expectations, Expect Resistance.”
Over the next few minutes, as the protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching,” a line of eight riot gear-clad policemen with shields formed in front of the bus, with more police in reserve behind them, along with at least three police dogs. At the same time, a very relaxed officer, apparently in charge, bantered with one of the protesters at the front of the group within arm’s length.
The police asked the protesters to move, but they stood still. After a false start or two, the line of riot police walked forward, shields held up. It took less than two minutes for the police to clear a path for the bus through the almost unresisting demonstrators, who backed up slowly as police advanced, allowing three buses to proceed unmolested to the dinner party.
No one disputes that police violence also occurred during this event or afterwards. The police say they were provoked; protesters say they did not provoke anyone. No one has yet suggested police provocateurs. The video that has surfaced so far is inconclusive as to who started it. There is footage of police chasing protesters, but none of police being chased.
Media coverage has been sparse, with the most comprehensive coverage coming from “Blurt,” the Seven Days staff blog, which carries many still pictures, several videos and links to the police report and other coverage.
The first report, in the Burlington Free Press, started with a misleading headline: “Peaceful protest turns violent in Burlington.” The body of the story, however, made clear that most if not all the violence came from police. Eyewitness accounts in the paper included Free Press photographer Elliott deBruyn’s account of a 23-year-old woman shot at point blank range with a rubber bullet.
A late night report on WCAX-TV showed police officers on the attack against protesters, but not the other way around. The report also showed the earlier, peaceful crowd of about 500 people demonstrating against a tar sands oil pipeline by creating a “human oil spill” in the street across from the conference site.
On Monday morning, Vermont Public Radio did not report any of the police violence in its coverage of the day’s protests against the human and environmental costs of a possible new pipeline through Vermont or flooding of native American lands by Hydro-Quebec. The radio reported that police “cleared a small number of the protesters” without mentioning the shootings with pepper balls or the use of pepperspray.
The Burlington Police Department had a press release on the day’s events ready by 9:30 P.M Sunday evening. The report largely conformed to other accounts, except that the police say some protesters “began pushing back” and “others sat on the ground while at least two others lay down locking arms.” These are not visible on the available video. The police report said that one fleeing protester dragged a police officer 20-30 feet.
The report confirmed that “two officers discharged defensive munitions, including eight to 10 pepper balls and a sting ball round (a defensive round used to deploy several small rubber “stingball pellets”) and others used pepper spray.
