In late September, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger stood in Roosevelt Park and announced a slew of new policies aimed at bringing greater accountability to the Burlington Police Department.
Seven months later, two central pieces of his proposals — police misconduct reporting policies and new requirements about releasing body camera footage — remain tied up in reviews and negotiations with key stakeholders. Neither has been implemented.
The proposals followed Burlington’s tumultuous summer of protests surrounding alleged misconduct and inappropriate use of force by three BPD officers. Those events were paired with the appointment of YMCA CEO Kyle Dodson to a six-month stint as the director of police transformation. Even as Weinberger spoke, protesters demanding change continued to occupy Battery Park only a few blocks away.
The announcements aimed to show that Weinberger was taking the critiques of the protestors seriously.
“In this moment, we have an opportunity and a necessity to finally root systemic racism out of all our institutions, including policing,” Weinberger said at the press conference. “And at long last fully deliver to our Black and brown residents the fairness, safety and solidarity that they are due.”
Dodson recently exited in controversy after he produced a final report that was largely plagiarized. Meanwhile, the body camera policy remains in a review process between a citizen oversight board and the city attorney, and the city and police union are bargaining over misconduct reporting.
Weinberger was not available for comment Thursday. The mayor’s Communications Coordinator Samantha Sheehan said in an emailed statement to VTDigger that “These policies continue to be a priority of the administration and we will continue to work responsively and collaboratively with the Police Commission as they finalize them.”
Justice for All Executive Director Mark Hughes told VTDigger that he thinks there’s a disconnect between the mayor’s speech in the fall versus the current reality.
“I’m concerned that the mayor — his sense of urgency — is not being reflected in his implementation,” Hughes said.
He’s also concerned that these policies were imposed unilaterally by the mayor without input from the public or City Council.
“It’s more than they’re taking too long,” Hughes said. “It’s also the fact that, well, we weren’t involved in that decision.”
Body camera policy
In September, Weinberger asked the citizen oversight Police Commission to approve the body camera policy by October. It was greenlit in late November by the body — members did not take a formal vote — and has been in review by the city attorney’s office until recently.
“We received the vetted copies of these policies last week,” Police Commission Chair Jabulani Gamache said in an emailed statement to VTDigger.
At the commission’s most recent meeting Wednesday night, they revised the body camera policy again by limiting the scope of what footage can be released to make the volume of redactions more feasible for the BPD, prompting another review by the city attorney.
Acting Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad told commissioners that his department currently does not have the staffing to handle the redaction responsibilities that will be required under the new policy. He said he’s working with the city to find more staffing.
“But until that happens, we cannot comply with this,” Murad said. “I would like to, and it would be my preference just to put everything out without the need for redaction, but we can’t do that. The law doesn’t permit it.”
BPD Deputy Chief Matt Sullivan said the way the policy was written would require body camera footage to be proactively provided to the public whenever police use a gun, pepper spray, batons or other lethal forces — including when these weapons are shown to a person and not actually deployed.
The commission passed a motion to change the word “use” to “discharge” in section 1.b of the policy. That means that body camera footage would be proactively published only when weapons such as batons, pepper spray and Tasers are discharged — but not when they are merely displayed.
However, guns fall into a separate category, and body camera footage would be proactively published whenever guns are displayed at the officer’s discretion or discharged.
Under the policy as it currently stands, BPD is also required to release footage within 30 days of an incident if use of force results “in serious bodily injury or death to any person” or if the police chief, mayor and/or the majority of the Police Commission determine that footage needs to be released to address “significant public attention or concern” about an incident.
New misconduct reporting policy
The Police Commission unanimously voted to move the new misconduct reporting policy forward in its approval process. It now has to be bargained over between the city attorney’s office and the Burlington police union.
That’s because Sullivan said the union takes issue with section five of the misconduct policy, which requires the police chief to issue a public report on the results of investigations into high-level complaints. The report would detail the incident and the outcome of the BPD’s finding on whether the officer violated departmental rules and whether they’re being disciplined.
Sullivan said the union asserts that the proposal violates section 15.4 subsection G of their contract, which includes a provision that information gleaned during employee interviews must generally be kept secret. Exceptions are that it may be shared with the chief of police, the city attorney, the human resources director or the department investigator.
The rest of the new misconduct policy would require the BPD to post an anonymized summary of all complaints levied against officers on a monthly basis. The department will also be required to publish a quarterly report that details how many incidents and complaints are tallied against officers each month, including any disciplinary action taken. But the reports will not include the identity of the officers.
The new policy says that when a citizen alleges that an officer has committed a higher-level infraction, details of the incident will be posted on the BPD’s website within 10 days. This will include whether the complaints have been dismissed, unfounded, investigated or appealed and whether the officer has been placed on administrative duty or leave.
Officer disciplinary records will also be released through public records requests under this new policy.
City Attorney Eileen Blackwood said this was the first she had heard of the union’s disagreement with section five of the misconduct policy, which is why she said she would need time to resolve the issue with the union before gaining final approval from the commission. In an emailed response to VTDigger, Blackwood said she hopes to have the misconduct policy back to the commission by its May meeting.
When asked by commissioner Shireen Hart if this policy could be ready for commission approval by their May meeting, Blackwood said she had “no clue.” Blackwood is also stepping down from her position in June but said a new assistant city attorney is coming onto the team with past policing policy experience.
Sullivan also raised concerns about section six of the policy, which pertains to the release of officer disciplinary records. He said this is a “complete departure from past practice.”
“While I appreciate the concern,” commissioner Melo Grant said in response to Sullivan, “just because something is a departure from previous practice doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. If we don’t change, we don’t change.”