Some Burlington police commissioners have faced threats after airing concerns regarding officers’ use of force in a recent stun gun incident, commission chair Jabulani Gamache wrote in a letter to the mayor and City Council this week.
In the letter, Gamache warned that the Burlington police union had “crossed a dangerous line” when it released a statement that identified two commissioners by name and criticized their comments, prompting a flurry of hostile posts on social media.
“There is palpable fear amongst some members of the commission about whether or not we can provide feedback and ask questions of officers without retaliation moving forward,” he wrote.
The letter — and the oversight questions that it raises — arrive as the Burlington police department faces public scrutiny for a Jan. 7 encounter in which two Burlington police officers, Meaghan O’Leary and Oren Byrne, shocked a 19-year-old with a stun gun while attempting to detain him.
BPD last week released body-worn camera footage of the incident, which depicts an altercation that quickly escalates when the teenager, Mbyayenge Mafuta, attempts to evade the officers, and fights back as they try to handcuff him. He faces two charges of assault on an officer, after allegedly punching O’Leary in the head and grabbing Byrne’s neck during the altercation.
The officers had received a call that an individual was trying to open a car window with a screwdriver in Burlington’s Old North End. That witness gave officers a description of the individual, and said he was walking down George Street, where officers encountered Mafuta.
After a resident who witnessed the incident filed a complaint, alleging an improper use of force, the police commission requested to view body-worn camera footage. The commission’s role is to investigate such citizen complaints. It may provide disciplinary recommendations to the police chief as a result, though they are only advisory.
Commissioners first raised their concerns regarding the officers’ use of force at a Jan. 26 meeting, prompting VTDigger’s report on the incident. While some said they did not feel the officers had acted inappropriately, commissioner Stephanie Seguino called the footage “troubling,” and said the officers did not approach the situation with appropriate concern for potential trauma or mental health issues, while commissioner Melo Grant said she, too, had found the incident concerning.
In response, the officers’ union, the Burlington Police Officers Association, put out a statement defending Byrne and O’Leary. “We stand by and support our members involved in this incident,” it reads, saying their actions were lawful.
The statement also identified Seguino and Grant by name, and criticized their comments at length, calling the comments unfair, and “based on instinct, feeling and ‘gut’ reactions instead of objective fact.”
That statement, Gamache wrote in his letter, prompted comments that were “threatening in nature towards the commissioners named.”
“How can any current or future Police Commissioners have open discussions if we fear being publicly attacked and maligned by the BPOA?” his letter asks.
Gamache also wrote that he thought the attacks were part of a larger pattern. “Our state has a poor history of supporting women, especially women of color, in office and on commission/boards,” he wrote.
The BPOA did not immediately return a request for comment Friday regarding the letter. Gamache also did not respond to multiple inquiries from VTDigger.
The letter currently sits on the City Council’s Feb. 8 agenda.
Reached by phone Friday, city councilor Brian Pine said he shared the concerns that Gamache had raised. “I’ve never seen members of a city department, any department, specifically call out citizens who serve on the commission that provides oversight,” he told VTDigger.
Still, he said he didn’t think the council “should do anything formally,” noting that the union has “the right to state their own opinions.” Rather, Pine said, he thought the problem at hand was “structural.”
In recent weeks, the city has been struggling with the issue of police oversight. In December, city councilors passed a ballot question that would have changed the city charter to create an independent police oversight board, with binding authority over disciplinary matters.
Mayor Miro Weinberger vetoed that proposal, arguing that it was overly complex for new charter language and would contribute to “the dismantling of the Burlington Police Department.” He has said he agrees, however, that reforms to police discipline are needed.
The oversight questions have loomed over the police commission’s investigation of the Jan. 7 use-of-force incident. Some on the police commission have said they wish to see additional footage that contains witness statements, which the police department is withholding.
Acting police chief Jon Murad has maintained that he cannot release witness statements as a matter of law, in part because the case is currently being tried in juvenile court.
Gamache wrote that he hoped the police commission will issue its own collective statement “admonishing” the police union for their comments “in the coming days.”
