The Vermont Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved law enforcement reforms that would mandate state police wear body cameras, establish an uniform use-of-force policy for all officers, and criminalize the use of certain restraint techniques, including chokeholds.
The Senate’s swift movement on criminal justice measures comes after Vermont lawmakers vowed to act quickly following the death of George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis last month.
Floyd’s death has sparked protests and calls to defund and reform law enforcement agencies in Vermont and across the country.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the legislation approved on Tuesday, S.119 and S.219 are the “beginning, and not an end” to the chamber’s work on new policing measures.
The first bill, S.119, creates a statewide policy for police use of force which states that officers can only use deadly force when it is “necessary.”
Under the legislation, such force would be considered necessary in cases where police officers or others face “imminent threat of death or bodily injury.”
It could also be used in situations where police are pursuing suspects accused of violent crimes and officers believe an individual could cause death or injury to others unless they are “immediately apprehended.”
The current legal standard for use of force is based on case law, and relies on whether a reasonable person would have acted in the same manner as the officer in question.
Sears stressed that under the new policy, police could only use force in instances where it’s “proportional” to the alleged crime.
He said that in the case of the killing in Minneapolis, where Floyd was apprehended under suspicion of using counterfeit money and then died after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, the use of force was uncalled for.
“The alleged crime was passing a $20 counterfeit bill,” Sears said. “I don’t know how anyone would consider that proportional to the action taken by law enforcement.”
The mandate in the second piece of legislation, S.219, would require all Vermont State Police officers to wear body cameras starting on Aug. 1.
Currently, local police departments are not covered by the legislation. But Sears said that he hopes the U.S. Congress, which is also considering police reforms, will soon approve funding for more local departments to purchase the equipment. Burlington, for example, already has officers using body cams.
If funding is approved, Sears said he expects lawmakers will broaden the mandate to include local police.
However, while lawmakers have received assurance that DPS has already started purchasing the cameras, there is an ongoing concern about where the funding to cover the cost of storing the video — a hurdle that ended an attempt at this reform in 2019 — will come from.
The legislation says that if the DPS can’t afford body cameras using its current budget, additional funding will be included in the fiscal year 2021 spending bill legislators plan to pass later this summer.
The second police reform bill, S.219, would also prohibit law enforcement officers from using restraints that apply pressure to “the neck, throat, windpipe, or carotid artery that may prevent or hinder breathing, reduce intake of air, or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain.”
Officers who use such restraints and end up injuring or killing someone could be found guilty of a new crime that could be punishable by up to 20 years in prison, or a $50,000 fine.
In addition, S.219 ties state grant funding for law enforcement agencies to compliance with race data collection.
“The problem was that although the Legislature had required the reporting of racial data in traffic stops, there was no mechanism to make sure that that data was recorded,” Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, said on the virtual Senate floor.
The Senate’s action on this legislation comes after it passed its first law enforcement reform on June 18, requiring the state to develop feasibility plans for placing mental health experts in every police barrack.
As the upper chamber approved the proposals Tuesday, the lower chamber began putting in work on the measures.
The House committees on judiciary and on government operations held a joint hearing throughout the day, breaking only for floor sessions, hearing from a number of witnesses.
Michael Schirling, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, who said he supports additional oversight and restrictions on law enforcement, added that he believes some of the measures passed by the upper chamber are purely political and will not work well in Vermont.
“There are a few fragments I think that have been floated that are frankly more political than they are operational,” Schirling said.
“I think there’s a couple pieces that are rushing in a response to wanting to be on the map of whatever national publication says ‘these states did X,’” he added.
Schirling singled out the new crime created for police officers who use banned restraints, and said it was unnecessary, as current criminal statutes can already be used to prosecute police officers.
“It’s called aggravated assault,” he said. “It’s been on the books for decades.”
In the Senate and now in the House, people of color have also testified that lawmakers may be moving too swiftly — without properly hearing from all the stakeholders — in an attempt to push legislation through that may not go far enough to address criminal and racial justice reform.
On Tuesday, Xusana Davis, the Scott administration’s executive director of racial equity, told House members that in a perfect world she would like the Legislature to “take a little more time.”
“A lot of white people, particularly people in positions of leadership, have been mobilized and are extremely energized in wanting to act,” Davis said. “For a lot of communities of color and their activists and allies, it feels like we’re being rushed through something that we’ve spent so many years calling for.”
Etan Nasreddin-Longo, who chairs an advisory panel looking at racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system, echoed Davis, adding that the decision to go ahead without allegedly hearing from members of affected communities “might have to be remembered at election time.”
“There’s a sense from many people that this is all going so quickly that no one other than the Legislature can have a handle on what is really taking place,” Nasreddin-Longo said.
The House is expected to first take up S.219 before taking on S.119 and potentially H.478, which would establish a task force to study and consider a state apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, when the Legislature returns in August.
