The attorney for Rutland City Police Cpl. Christopher Rose, who fatally shot a man in a McDonald’s restaurant, is battling Vermont State Police to obtain a video from inside the restaurant, even though it does not show the shooting, which occurred in a bathroom.
“I want a full picture,” said Susan Edwards, Rose’s lawyer.
Meanwhile, state police say the Rutland Police Department should not have allowed Rose to view dashcam footage from outside the restaurant before he was questioned by state police investigators.
And the victim’s nephew said his family is still searching for answers.
State police are leading the investigation into the Aug. 25 fatal shooting of Jonathan Mansilla, 33, of Coral Gables, Florida.
Edwards said this week she filed a public records request to Vermont State Police, seeking the footage from inside the restaurant, but her request was denied. In the denial letter, state police pointed to an exemption in the Vermont Public Records Act for “records dealing with the detection and investigation of crime.”
Edwards said she plans to file suit against state police, noting the courts have ordered video released in other police investigations, including a Burlington case in 2019. She did not provide specifics on the lawsuit, including when it might be filed.
She said she believes a restaurant camera captured footage of the corridor leading to the bathroom. Mansilla had run into the restaurant, police said, after his vehicle crashed at a nearby intersection while he tried to evade officers looking for him in connection with an earlier crash in the city.
Investigators said in a statement that Rose thought Mansilla was armed, coming at him, and raising a weapon when he came out of a stall. Rose fired three shots, according to investigators, killing Mansilla, who did not have a weapon in his hand, but a cellphone.
Rose and Mansilla were the only two people in the bathroom at the time of the shooting, police said. There were no cameras in the bathroom.
Rutland City police do not wear body cameras.
That’s a point that has angered David Heria, Mansilla’s nephew, who said he has lots of questions about the shooting.
“Down here in Florida, everyone has body cam,” Heria said in a phone interview from Miami, where he lives.
He said he questions why lethal force was used.
“If he was breaking into houses and stuff like that, yeah, by all means, but he hit the back of the car; it wasn’t really that serious,” Heria said.
“They could’ve tased him,” he said. “They could’ve shot him, don’t get me wrong; they could’ve shot him in his leg, his arm, his stomach — not shoot to kill.”
Heria called Mansilla’s death a case of police brutality.
“I don’t see how they didn’t have a taser or something like that,” Heria said. “I just think there were other ways to go about it than to go in there and shoot him and kill him.”
Rutland Police Chief Brian Kilcullen said Wednesday he couldn’t respond to the allegations because the shooting remains under investigation by state police.
Edwards, Rose’s lawyer, also declined to respond to Heria’s comments, other than to say she believed her client would be exonerated.
Officer saw dashcam video
Video from cruiser dashcams did capture what happened outside the restaurant near the crash scene, and some of what preceded the crash.
Rutland Police provided its dashcam video to Edwards, Rose’s attorney. But they say they do not have the footage taken from inside the restaurant; that was collected by state police, as part of their probe into whether the officer’s use of deadly force was justified.
Rutland police gave their dashcam video to Edwards before Rose had provided a statement to state police investigators — a move that state police objected to, as first reported by Seven Days.
“Whenever we do these investigations, we tell the agencies involved we don’t want their officers involved in a shooting to watch any video,” said Capt. Scott Dunlap, head of the state police Major Crime Unit. If officers see video before giving a statement, they may rely on what they saw on the videos instead of relying on their recollections of what happened.
Officers who view a video before an interview often provide a more detailed account than is realistic for a person to recall, Dunlap said, “which was evident in this case.”
“The part that (Rose) watched before going into McDonald’s, it was obviously very detailed,” Dunlap said. “During a traumatic or stressful incident like that, you don’t remember all those fine details.”
State police still interviewed Rose after consulting with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, Dunlap said, pointing out that the video the officer saw did not show the shooting inside the bathroom.
Similar situation in 2019
Kilcullen, Rutland’s police chief, referred specific questions to City Attorney Matthew Bloomer on the decision to release video footage to Edwards.
Bloomer said this week that Edwards submitted a public records request seeking the video and other materials shortly after the shooting. He said the city did not provide the video to Edwards under the Public Records Act, but based on past practice, as it did in the 2019 police shooting of Christopher G. Louras, the son of former longtime Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras.
In that case, Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan and Rutland County State’s Attorney Rose Kennedy conducted separate reviews, in which they each determined the actions of the four police officers who exchanged gunfire with the younger Louras were justified.
Bloomer, the city attorney, said that, in making the 2019 video decision, the city talked with other attorneys and consultants, including its insurance provider. He said the insurance carrier’s legal advisers said it would be best to provide the video to the officers.
“Their feeling was that — again, this isn’t the only factor — but their feeling was it was in the city’s best interest for the officer (to) be allowed to review and provide the most accurate” statement, Bloomer said.
Ultimately, he said, it was the city’s decision.
“We weren’t forced to do anything by the insurer,” Bloomer said. “It was another resource.”
A statewide use-of-force policy that went into effect Oct. 1 would prevent Rutland’s practice; it prohibits an officer from viewing video before making an initial statement to investigators. After that initial statement, the policy states, the officer and their attorney can review a video, if one exists. The officer and the attorney can then talk to investigators again to provide additional information, according to the policy.
Dunlap, head of the state police Major Crime Unit, said his agency has completed its investigation into the Rutland shooting and the results have been turned over to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and the Bennington County State’s Attorney Office for review on whether the use of force was justified.
Typically, the prosecutor in the county where a police shooting occurred would conduct that review. However, “in this situation, I knew the officer and I thought it made sense to allow a different (state’s attorney’s) office to review it as well as the AG’s office,” said Kennedy, the Rutland County prosecutor.
Prosecutors have set no timeline for releasing their findings.
Jackie O’Brien contributed reporting.
