BURLINGTON — Burlington City Councilors are split after hearing from Mayor Miro Weinberger and Police Chief Brandon del Pozo about their actions following the death of man days after a physical encounter with a city police officer.
Del Pozo and Weinberger contested the medical examiner’s finding that Douglas Kilburn’s death was a homicide in an email to Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine hours before the announcement of the findings, public records acquired by VTDigger showed.
On Monday, councilors questioned Weinberger and del Pozo about the incident, but City Attorney Eileen Blackwood said they could not publicly answer questions that would touch on any of the specifics of the case, which is currently being investigated by the Vermont State Police.
In a just over half-an-hour conversation, no new information was shared with the public. Councilors passed on an opportunity to view the body camera footage in the case, saying they wanted all of the discussion to be in public.
Councilor Max Tracy said he was frustrated by the behind-the-scenes conversation about the medical examiners finding, and did not see a justification for del Pozo and Weinberger getting involved.
“There doesn’t seem to be willingness to acknowledge they may have done something wrong in this situation,” Tracy said.
Councilor Ali Dieng said he was also unhappy with how the conversation played out and that he did not have the opportunity to ask the questions he wanted answered. He said he felt like del Pozo and Weinberger were wrong to reach out to Levine.
“I think that was totally wrong, and on top of that, the mayor’s chief of staff contacting the [governor’s] administration asking them to hold onto the information was not professional at all,” he said.
Weinberger said “reasonable people” would understand — when all of the facts of the case are made public — his and del Pozo’s decision to contact state officials after the chief medical examiner ruled Douglas Kilburn’s death a homicide.
Weinberger and del Pozo offered to answer the council’s more specific questions in a private executive session, but no councilors made a motion to do so.
City Attorney Eileen Blackwood said that the city attorney’s office had no concerns about del Pozo and Weinberger’s actions. She said Weinberger and del Pozo simply had questions about the medical examiner’s findings, and asked their questions through the “appropriate channels.”
“The city attorney’s office has reviewed the actions taken by the mayor’s office and by the chief and has no concerns about how those things unfolded, that those things went through the chain of command and that they occurred in a way that was not inconsistent with the advice they were receiving from the city attorney’s office,” she said.
Other councilors defended Weinberger and del Pozo.
Councilor Joan Shannon said she didn’t think Weinberger and del Pozo’s questions about the medical examiner’s findings were unreasonable, and she didn’t understand how the medical examiner reached his conclusion.
Councilor Adam Roof said he would accept the city attorney’s assessment that no wrongdoing had occurred. He said that he had not seen any evidence that Weinberger or del Pozo were trying to change the findings.
“If there was a choice on behalf of administration to reach out to either muddy the waters or move the needle that would be a problem, but we have not heard any claim to that, only conjecture,” he said.
Questionable communications
Kilburn, 54, was found dead March 14, days after an altercation with Burlington police officer Cory Campbell in the ambulance bay at the University of Vermont Medical Center. Police say Kilburn punched Campbell in the face during a March 11 interaction, which lead Campbell to punch Kilburn before subduing him.
Kilburn was treated at UVM Medical Center and released the next day, but was found dead in his home later that week. Del Pozo recused his department from an investigation. The Vermont State Police opened a probe.
Hours before the state police announced Shapiro’s findings, Weinberger’s chief of staff Jordan Redell reached out to Gov. Phil Scott’s chief of staff, Jason Gibbs, seeking to delay the release of the medical examiner’s findings. The email exchange between Gibbs and other officials was obtained in a public records request from VTDigger.
Tom Anderson, the head of Vermont’s Department of Public Safety, called del Pozo’s efforts “completely inappropriate,” while Gov. Phil Scott’s Chief of Staff Jason Gibbs said Weinberger’s attempts to have the governor’s office intervene “did not feel right.”
Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan called Weinberger to express concerns about statements del Pozo made about the case at a press conference following the state police’s announcement.
Donovan’s office will ultimately review the state police’s findings and determine whether Campbell will be charged.
Keeping the conversation public
The council’s discussion Monday followed a request from Dieng.
Blackwood said that while information already reported in the media could be discussed in public session, any information relating to the specifics of the investigation would have to be conducted in executive session behind closed doors.
Councilor Brian Pine said that the council had to balance providing as much information as possible to the public and respecting the investigation, and that he was not sure what the council would gain by viewing the body camera footage, which the administration offered to show the council.
“This is putting us in an incredibly difficult position, to have us view the footage in a private executive session, have information, and then not be able to have conversations with our constituents after that,” Pine said.
Weinberger said the administration was ready to share the body camera footage with the council and was trying to responsive to council’s request for a meeting. The mayor said the he and del Pozo have shared as much as they can about their actions when speaking to the media.
“The attorney general does not want the facts of the case discussed any further, and there really isn’t any other way to say any more about our actions without getting into those facts,” Weinberger said.
Tracy asked why del Pozo and Weinberger did not wait until the autopsy was publicly released before questioning it, and if they would do the same thing again.
“This is a very unusual set of circumstances, and I think it’s very hard to project out into the future on these things coming together this way,” Weinberger said.
Del Pozo said he contacted Levine because he didn’t want to challenge the findings in public if it could be explained to him in private. He said he was open to a review of the department’s use of force policy and would welcome community participation in doing so.
The police department has refused to show the body camera footage to Campbell, the officer involved in the incident, at the request of the Vermont State Police. Campbell has sued to view the body camera footage.
“The city council, on the other hand, is bound to confidentiality about that evidence, and it’s the property of the city,” del Pozo said. “That does not bear on the investigation, and we’d be willing to show it to them.”
But councilors decided they did not want to see the body camera footage and then not be able to answer their constituents’ questions about it, as they would be bound by the confidentiality of the executive session.
Campbell has not spoken to state investigators, but a court affidavit, first obtained by Seven Days, states Campbell wrote a report that Kilburn punched him as Campbell attempted to handcuff him. Campbell wrote that Kilburn punched his lower left jaw, causing pain that rated a 3 out of 10 on a pain scale.
“I then punched Kilburn in the right eye three times casing (sic) him to fall to the ground,” Campbell wrote. “I placed Kilburn into handcuffs and observed Kilburn to be bleeding heavily from the right eye.”
