The Burlington Police Department has released officer body camera footage of an October 2018 incident in which officers tackled and apparently injured a Burlington man.
The Oct. 6, 2018, footage shows officers chasing and tackling Mohamed Luhizo, who says in the footage that officers broke his tooth and can be seen spitting out blood after he is tackled.
The footage was released following a request from the attorneys for Albin, Charlie and Jeremie Meli, and Mabior Jok, who sued the city for excessive force in May. Body camera footage in those September 2018 altercations showed officers pushing and tackling the men.
The altercation in the footage released this week involving Mohamed Luhizo, 21, and his brother Luhizo Luhizo, 23, was reviewed by the department and the Burlington Police Commission, both of which determined that officer behavior had been within department guidelines.
According to the department, both Mohamed and Luhizo Luhizo were fighting with a group of people after the bars closed. As officers were trying to handcuff Luhizo, Mohamed shoved the officers and Luhizo kicked an officer in the chest and chin, injuring him, according to the department.
The department released two videos, just under three minutes long, showing the same time from the perspective of two officers, Cory Campbell and Bryan Kirby. Other officers who responded were Sgt. Jason Bellavance and Officers Jennifer Cousins, Derek Hodges and Victor Montalvo.
The video begins after Mohamed Luhizo starts to flee the scene and shows officers chasing him across South Winooski Avenue before he slows down near the curb.
Campbell then tackles Luhizo, and is joined by Kirby in holding him to the ground. Hodges joins them in holding Luhizo down shortly thereafter.
Hodges’ arrival onto the scene is partially obstructed in the video the department released, but he wrote in a court affidavit for the charges against Luhizo that his knee “may have” contacted Luhizo’s head.
“When I got onto the ground, my knee may have made contact with Mr. Luhizo’s head,” Hodges wrote.
Luhizo told the officers and bystanders that he was injured while on the ground.
“They hit me in the tooth, they broke my tooth, I did nothing wrong,” Luhizo says as he lies on the ground. “Look, I’m bleeding.”
As they arrest Luhizo, Hodges approaches a group of bystanders, and it appears an officer yells at the bystanders to “back the fuck up.”
After officers bring Luhizo to the cruiser, he again tells the officers that they injured him and spits blood onto a cruiser to show the officers he was injured.
“Stop fucking spitting, you understand me?” Kirby says.
Mohamed Luhizo was charged with disorderly conduct, impeding a public officer and resisting arrest in connection to the altercation, charges that were dropped in a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious conduct, driving under the influence and providing false information to a police officer.
He served six months of a 1-2 two year sentence and is on probation.
Luhizo Luhizo pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and served a 30 to 60 day jail sentence as the result of the incident.
Evan Chadwick, an attorney who represents the Meli brothers, said he requested the footage from the department as he believed it was relevant and happened a month after the Meli and Jok altercations.
“It’s upsetting,” Chadwick said.
Bellavance and Campbell were both also named in the Meli lawsuit, and Bellavance was suspended for shoving Jeremie Meli against a wall, knocking him unconscious.
Campbell was investigated by the state police and not charged by Attorney General TJ Donovan after a Burlington man, Douglas Kilburn, died earlier this year after Campbell punched him. Donovan found Campbell’s actions in that case to be “reasonable and justified.”
Acting Police Chief Jon Murad said he believed the officers’ behavior in the most recently released footage reflected good police work.
“A person who had committed a crime, and who was known to be a person who has been involved in many crimes in our city, fled from police was pursued, tried to evade and was unsuccessful in doing so and ended up being apprehended,” Murad said. “That’s good police work.”
Murad contested the notion that Campbell had “tackled” Luhizo.
“I take issue with the idea that it was a tackle,” Murad said. “I think it was a collision because the individual was fleeing from police officers.”
Lia Ernst, a staff attorney for the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union, said it was difficult to comment on the propriety of the officers’ conduct because the videos did not show what had lead up to the use of force.
But Ernst said the officers’ use of profanity in the video was problematic.
“It’s an unfortunately common occurrence we see when these videos are released that officers are behaving in a way to escalate instead of de-escalate situations,” she said.
Murad said that there was an “ongoing internal effort” in the department for officers to use profanity less.
“But that did not cause this incident,” he said. “This incident was caused by two people fighting and using force against police officers, and then one individual fleeing from police officers.“
The department does not have formal policies on when body camera footage should be released. The special committee created by the City Council to review the police department’s policies and practices is considering the matter.
“Until such policies exist the Department will continue to make decisions about the release of footage on an ad hoc basis,” the department’s release states. “In this case, the Department is proactively releasing this video and facts related to it because it is, apparently, a matter of potential legal interest.”
Ernst said the department should have a clear policy on the release of body camera footage. She said the ACLU believes that body cameras can be an important tool in ensuring police accountability, but the lack of a policy surrounding the release can lead to the cameras doing more harm than good.
“It doesn’t lead to public reassurance when videos are only selectively released, and withheld in some circumstances, released in others,” Ernst said. “We would all be better off with a clear and consistent policy that dictates when videos should be released, when victims or witnesses should be redacted, when officers can and cannot turn off the body cam, and when officers should or should not be allowed to review footage in advance of giving an initial statement.”
While there were additional officers involved in the altercation, Murad said the two videos that the department released “gave the best understanding” of Luhizo’s pursuit and apprehension.
“Those two gave the most complete picture, and they are the ones that we used both to look at the incident and to discuss it with the police commission,” he said.
Meli case update
In the Meli case, Chadwick filed a motion Dec. 16 for a default judgment against the city after then-Police Chief Brandon del Pozo did not include the @Winklewatchers account he operated to troll activist Charles Winkleman in response to a discovery question about social media accounts del Pozo operates.
Del Pozo resigned Dec. 16 after admitting to Seven Days that he was behind the account.
Chadwick wrote that providing “incomplete and false responses” to discovery questions “perverts justice.”
“It is a fraud perpetrated on the Court when a chief law enforcement officer, with a masters degree in criminal justice and with assistance from counsel, including the City of Burlington legal department, knowingly provides false answers under oath to legitimate discovery questions,” he wrote.
The city responded in opposition on Dec. 23, arguing that del Pozo’s Twitter account was “entirely irrelevant” to the excessive force cases.
“Nothing in the account could ever be admissible as substantive evidence on the claims raised in these cases,” Pietro Lynn, who is representing the city and del Pozo in the case, wrote.
Chadwick also filed a subpoena on Dec. 26 with local TV station WCAX for the tape of a department roll call that was leaked to the station after news of del Pozo’s account was leaked.
WCAX reported that the department was conducting an internal investigation into who leaked the tape of the call. Murad declined to comment on that investigation Thursday.
WCAX news director Roger Garrity said the station would be contesting the subpoena.
