A Black man ordered out of his vehicle at gunpoint by a Chester police officer was the victim of illegal discrimination based on his race, according to the state Human Rights Commission.
On a 5-0 vote, the panel found reasonable grounds that the Chester Police Department violated Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act in interactions with Obadiah Jacobs up to and during a traffic stop in May 2019.
The findings, dated May 27, were based on a 24-page report by attorney Melissa Horwitz, a commission investigator, who found that the stop, search and use of a gun by Sgt. William Frank in the traffic stop had been based on Jacobs’ race.
In compiling the report, Horwitz reviewed court records, internal police documents, police video and audio recordings from dispatch.
“Viewed in totality,” Horwitz wrote, “this Investigation finds that there is sufficient direct evidence to show Sgt. Frank was motivated by racial animus when he stopped and searched Mr. Jacobs at gunpoint on the road.”
Thomas Bixby, an attorney representing Jacobs, declined to comment on the matter when reached last week.
“As the matter is in litigation, neither I nor Mr. Jacobs can comment at this time,” Bixby wrote in an email. “If and when either of us can make a statement, I will let you know.”
Bor Yang, executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, also declined to answer questions on the investigation and subsequent report.
“The HRC has a six-month period to resolve matters before deciding if it will litigate,” Yang wrote in an email. “All I can say is that the matter is in negotiations. The report speaks for itself and we stand behind our investigation and final determination.”
The Chester town government submitted its own 26-page response in May to the Human Rights Commission report. The response, filed by attorney James Carroll, stated the town officers’ actions did not constitute discrimination against Jacobs.
That filing stated that Chester “extends its apologies to Mr. Jacobs for the 18 minutes and 27 seconds he was detained on May 10, 2019, including the 48 seconds for which he was subject to a high-risk stop. Given the facts of record, however, Chester maintains that there were nondiscriminatory reasons for the stop having nothing to do with an effort to discriminate or deprive Mr. Jacobs an accommodation based on Mr. Jacobs’ race and color as alleged.”
On Wednesday, Chester Town Manager Julie Hance said a mediation session between the town and the Human Rights Commission is scheduled for Sept. 8.
“Hopefully we will be able to resolve the issue then without having to go to court,” Hance said, who, as town manager, said she was speaking on behalf of the town government.
In several parts of the report, Horwitz, the Human Rights Commission investigator, provided strings of dialogue captured on audio recordings, including one at the traffic stop after Jacobs was allowed to leave. In it, Frank told Chester Police Chief Rick Cloud that he expected Jacobs to file a complaint.
“Whatever,” the chief replied, according to the report.
Frank then provided the chief with the full name of the man he pulled over — Obadiah Jacobs.
“Chief Cloud and the state trooper began making jokes about Mr. Jacobs’ first name and whether he was Amish,” according to the report. “They asked Sgt. Frank if Mr. Jacobs had a beard and if Sgt. Frank was stopping a horse and buggy.”
When Frank replied that Jacobs is Jamaican, Cloud responded, “I guess that would work too.”
According to the report, Frank also told Cloud, “I pulled him out at gunpoint. Of course, he is a Black man being treated this way. It is fucking bullshit. Whatever.”
According to the investigative report, on the afternoon of May 10, 2019, Frank pulled Jacobs over based on a “Be on the Lookout,” or BOLO, report that he had received three days earlier from the nearby Bellows Falls Police Department stemming from a road rage incident.
According to the report, the Bellows Falls BOLO stated: “Possible mini cooper, red/maroon, one of those colors, possible stripe on it, black male with dreadlocks, waved gun at an elderly subject when came over North Bridge, went north on 5 and had out-of-state plates.”
Three days later, according to the report, on May 10, Frank saw a Black man with dreadlocks, later determined to be Jacobs, driving a red Toyota with a white roof and New Hampshire license plates, and he began to follow that vehicle.
Frank had planned to pull behind Jacobs and follow him to allow himself more time to call dispatch to obtain more information, but Jacobs voluntarily pulled over, the report stated. Frank, the report stated, turned on his cruiser lights and video camera and pulled behind the car, ordering Jacobs out with his firearm drawn on Jacobs for about a minute.
Jacobs obeyed the officer’s commands and consented to a search of the vehicle, the report stated. No firearms were located during the stop, which lasted about 18 minutes.
Jacobs asked what the stop was about and Frank, after patting him down, told him, “Because yesterday or the day before, Bellows Falls coming across the bridge from New Hampshire, allegedly you waved a gun at somebody, pointed a gun at somebody.”
Jacobs replied, “No way; it could not be true.”
“It was a little tiny maroon car with a white stripe,” Frank told him, though the investigation noted that the BOLO did not identify the color of the stripe.
Jacobs later told the officer, “You made a big mistake by making me do all of that. I don’t have a gun. I don’t want one because I am a Black male and I feel offended as it is.”
“I am sorry you do. OK? But I did not make this up,” the sergeant replied.
“Well, I am very offended that you can treat me like this,” Jacobs said.
Frank went back to his cruiser and called dispatch to run Jacobs’ plates, at one point telling the dispatcher, “Hey, I got that car about waving the gun the other day. I got it stopped now.”
Frank then contacted the Chester Police Department for backup and returned to talk to Jacobs.
A state trooper, not named in the Human Rights Commission report, heard what was going on over the radio, arrived on the scene and stood at the back of the car but did not interact with Jacobs. Frank, after having no luck tracking down the officer from Bellows Falls who had issued the BOLO, told Jacobs to go to Bellows Falls police the following Monday.
Jacobs then drove away.
Frank, speaking to the trooper after Jacobs left, stated, “he (referring to Mr. Jacobs) is real perturbed that I pulled him out at gunpoint,” according to the Human Rights Commission report.
Cloud, the police chief, soon arrived, and Frank told him that Jacobs used to be a “player” in Bellows Falls, and would “sling dope” there.
Jacobs did not go to the Bellows Falls Police Department that following Monday, and no officers from that agency ever contacted him, according to the report. He never heard anything more from the Chester Police Department either, and Bellows Falls Police Chief David Bemis reported he did not follow up with Jacobs.
“Further,” according to the report, “the citizen who called 911 to report the incident never received any follow-up regarding his call or that police caught the person who had brandished a gun.”
Frank, that report stated, felt that the details of the BOLO were a “100% perfect match” when he made the traffic stop.
“However,” Horwitz wrote, “this investigation notes that while Mr. Jacobs was Black, had dreadlocks and was driving a red/maroon vehicle, his vehicle was the wrong make/model and did not have stripes, although its hood was a different color.”
Horwitz added, “What was noticeably missing from the BOLO and that this investigation finds would have been difficult for a witness to miss and odd to have been excluded from the BOLO: the fact that Mr. Jacobs’ dreadlocks were bright red.”
The town, in a footnote to its own filing, responds to the investigator’s report and its point about the color of Jacob’s dreadlocks.
“Here, the report places weight on the fact that Mr. Jacobs with dreadlocks appear, in part, in the video to be red, a fact missing from the identity descriptor in the BOLO,” the town’s response stated. “The video, however, also clearly depicts that Mr. Jacobs’ hair is black and red.”
According to the town’s response, Frank was not provided a description of the hair color.
“Under these circumstances, there is no basis upon which to fault for failing to identify information that he was not provided and could not reasonably observe until other than the stop,” the town’s response stated.
Also, according to the town’s response, there is no evidence of Frank or Cloud making a derogatory slur or comment relating to Jacobs’ race.
“As previously addressed, here the communications relied upon concerning the origins of Mr. Jacobs’ name as being ‘Amish’ were, in fact, made by a Vermont state trooper not associated with the town of Chester,” the town’s response stated.
“Further,” the response added, “Sgt. Frank’s reference to the expectation that Mr. Jacobs may be filing a complaint with reference to his treatment as ‘a black man’ as being ‘f***ing bullshit’ is his personal assessment of the legitimacy of such a claim and cannot be fairly inferred to represent a general or ‘implicit’ bias against persons of color.”
The town issued a press release after the Human Rights Commission findings, stating that while the “circumstances, reasons and motivations” for the stop remain in dispute, “Chester looks forward to actively engaging with the HRC and the complainant going forward in an effort to resolve the matter and bring it to a fair and equitable conclusion.”
Also, according to that statement, “Chester acknowledges that it can and will improve the delivery of its public safety services and is, to that end, engaged in the process of reviewing and updating its police policies and procedures.”
Hance, Chester’s town manager, on Wednesday referred comment on the matter to the press release issued by the town.
“I think our press release says it all,” Hance said. “We’re taking it seriously, and we’re doing our due diligence, looking into what we can do to improve.”
The Human Rights Commission investigator’s report stated that the Chester Police Department requires documentation or a use-of-force report when an officer draws a weapon, but no such report was filled out in this case.
“Sgt. Frank stated that this was because Chief Cloud was there at the time,” Horwitz wrote. “When this investigator followed up with the fact that the chief was not at the scene when the weapon was drawn, Sgt. Frank said he was not sure exactly when the chief arrived, but that he told him what happened.”
According to the commission’s report, a check of prior incidents for Jacobs and the Bellows Falls Police Department resulted in none that involved drugs.
“Respondent’s argument that race and color was used only for identification purposes entirely ignores the record in which Sgt. Franks made assumptions about Mr. Jacobs being a drug dealer and a well-known ‘player’ in Bellows Falls without any evidence,” the report stated. “Those stereotypes of African American men being associated with drugs and criminal activity is exactly the type of stereotypes that motivate one to find ‘reasonable suspicion’ when it does not exist.”
The investigator wrote that she asked Cloud, the police chief, if he or anyone else had conducted an investigation into the matter, other than the Human Rights Commission, and he replied they did not.
Also, Cloud defended the actions of Frank, saying he thought the BOLO description was close enough to justify the stop.
Jacobs has been “very distressed” by the incident and continues to worry about his safety when he sees an officer while driving, according to the Human Rights Commission report.
“He feels like he always needs to be looking over his shoulder,” the report stated.
