BENNINGTON — When two residents filed complaints about their experiences with the Bennington Police Department, they did not expect their concerns, and their identities, to be revealed and discussed at a public selectboard meeting.
ACLU Vermont believes the selectboard’s handling of that complaint was illegal.
The civil rights organization has filed an administrative complaint with the Human Rights Commission, which asks “whether the selectboard’s policy is discriminatory in itself, and whether the selectboard’s actions here constitute unlawful discriminatory retaliation.”
Jay Diaz, senior staff attorney for the Vermont ACLU, announced the filing at a press conference Wednesday, where he was joined by members of local NAACP chapters.
The couple lived in Bennington for two months last summer, and during that time experienced “racially motivated targeting, harassment, surveillance, and vilification by Bennington Police Department officers,” the ACLU complaint says.
Cassandra Keating and Joel Fowler, who is Black, filed complaints about eight separate incidents with the department. They didn’t hear anything back — until two months later when, without warning, the selectboard presented the complaints at a July 22 selectboard meeting, ultimately concluding that the complaints were unfounded.
Fowler and Keating were the first to use a recently installed function on the Bennington police website, which allows residents to submit “compliments and complaints.” The department developed the feature after an outside review of the department by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which found many townspeople don’t trust police officers.
The town is now in the midst of an ongoing process to devise and implement new policies for the police department, including installing a new citizens’ oversight board, but that board doesn’t yet exist.
“The town of Bennington still had no mechanism, once that complaint was received, in order to create a space of best practices to hear complaints,” said Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area NAACP, which extends to Bennington.
In the absence of such a board, selectboard members reviewed the complaints themselves, determined they were “unfounded,” then presented their process — including the complaints, body camera footage, and the identities of Fowler and Keating — to the public.
“Despite knowing that their actions would likely chill Ms. Keating, Mr. Fowler, and others from making future complaints against the Bennington police, the select board refused to change its policy of identity disclosure, perpetuating the specific and systemic racism inherent in disclosing the identities of those who complain about police misconduct,” the ACLU complaint reads.
Fowler and Keating have since left Vermont, citing concerns about their safety and privacy following the release of their public information.
‘People fear retaliation’
“The Bennington selectboard knows — because it was told by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and countless community members,” Diaz said, “that many people in this community, especially people of color, are afraid to ask for help or to make complaints about police conduct, because they fear retaliation from police, from town officials, and from others in their community.”
Diaz said both the outside report and reports from the U.S. Department of Justice have emphasized that identities of those who complain about police should remain protected; “otherwise, people fear retaliation and are less likely to come forward.”
The complaint cites V.S.A. § 317(c)(42) of Vermont’s Public Records Act, “which prevents revealing the identifying information of complainants who allege unlawful or abusive government actions.”
Selectboard members were using a different process — one that the ACLU calls illegal — outlined by then-selectboard-chair Donald Campbell in the July meeting.
Under that process, when the department receives a complaint, Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette writes a report. The selectboard, acting as an ad-hoc citizen review board, reviews the report and decides whether illegal conduct by an officer has taken place. If they find nothing illegal, they release all of the information to the public. If they proceed with an investigation, the material remains confidential.
Campbell did not reply to VTDigger’s request for comment, but said at the July meeting that the Vermont State Police advised the board on the general process for reviewing complaints. Adam Silverman, a spokesperson for the state police, referred VTDigger to the selectboard for comment.
Current selectboard chair Jeannie Jenkins also declined to comment.
“Because proceedings before the Human Rights Commission are confidential by statute, we have no comment,” she said. “Please know that the town will investigate and respond to the allegations.”
On camera
The body camera footage shows a number of incidents. In one, an officer issued a citation after Fowler and Keating parked in front of a laundromat while unloading their clothes, rather than in a designated space.
In another, an officer confronted Fowler in a parking lot, asking him for information because he’d heard that “people want to hurt” Fowler. When Fowler asked what the officer had heard, citing concern for his young daughter, the officer declined to provide information.
In another incident, Fowler, riding a dirt bike, ran through several stop signs and into a wooded area with a police officer following closely behind.
While the complaint makes reference to biased policing, it asks the Human Rights Commission only to assess the actions of the selectboard.
“This is not about Joel and what he’s done, or what anybody’s done,” Schultz said. “This is about the selectboard, and this is about the Bennington Police Department, and how the selectboard protects the police department, and does not protect all of its citizens.”
Doucette, the police chief, did not respond to a request for comment.
The ACLU complaint says Fowler has reason to fear police: In 2007, he was sent to prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit requested that Fowler’s conviction be vacated in 2015, and he was freed.
Tabitha Moore, former president of the Rutland Area NAACP, who worked with Fowler and Keating over the summer, said the selectboard’s actions were “both horrifying and not surprising,” and read a statement from Keating.
In her statement, Keating details moving to Bennington to pursue a career in law enforcement, having recently earned a degree in criminal science. She moved to Bennington hoping that people would “be more kind than in the city, and hold the door for the person behind them.”
“Our experience was much different,” she wrote. “It was nothing like we had ever imagined. The Bennington Police Department targeted us because Joel is a Black man. Nobody at the town did anything about it.”
She describes leaving Bennington with “the clothes on our backs. I left food in the fridge, dishes in the cabinets and all of our furniture. I slept on a cold floor for months just to get away from Bennington. Our experience in Vermont was traumatizing.”
Why the Human Rights Commission?
At Wednesday’s press conference, Diaz said the ACLU chose to file the complaint with the Human Rights Commission because, if it accepts the complaint, it will have the authority to “investigate every aspect of the case,” which can include requiring testimony from involved parties.
Bor Yang, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, said unless the commission makes a final determination that discrimination has occurred, all matters remain confidential. Under the commission’s general process, it reviews complaints to decide whether to investigate before proceeding to interview witnesses and conduct in-depth reviews of documents, finally producing a public report.
Diaz called the case an example of “the town’s long history of subjecting Black and brown people to over-policing, racial discrimination and fear in their own community.”
The department was recently accused of failing to conduct a thorough search after a Hispanic man went missing following a rollover crash.
Last June, Shamel Alexander, a Black man, received $30,000 in a settlement against the department. He’d been arrested for a drug offense during a traffic stop, but his conviction was unanimously overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court, which concluded that the officer in the case had a lack of reasonable suspicion and had therefore unreasonably searched Alexander.
Bennington police have also been accused of failing to properly investigate and address racial discrimination against former state Rep. Kiah Morris, which ultimately led to her family’s departure from Bennington and her decision not to run for a third term.
“Bennington needs a fair process of police review that protects its complainants that is not happening now, and needs a fair process that does not discourage those complaints from coming forward,” Diaz said. “Otherwise, things won’t change.”
