Updated at 1:43 p.m.
Almost two years after Burlington leaders resolved to cut the number of police officers the city could hire by 30%, a complementary effort to invest in public safety by increasing social services is gaining speed.
In recent months, the police department has increased the number of unarmed officers in its ranks, and developed plans to add more. These positions — coined “community service officers” and “community support liaisons” — are intended to reduce the number of fully sworn police officers responding to incidents where there is little threat of violence.
Both roles are revamped versions of positions that used to exist in the department. In response to the reduction in sworn officers, however, the department expanded the responsibilities of each position to free up full officers for more pressing calls.
That dynamic is precisely what advocates envisioned in 2020 when they pushed city leaders to thin the department’s ranks. By reaching out to individuals who are more likely to come in contact with police, they argued, the city can nip in the bud what might have become a situation requiring an armed police officer, and reduce the likelihood of an officer using force on someone unnecessarily.
Twenty-two months later, police leaders have devised an arrangement that seeks to act on the City Council’s call to “reduce the demand for police services through a variety of social services, as well as social justice, racial justice, and economic justice initiatives.”
The effort is still in an experimental phase, and officials hope the system of relying more on unarmed officers will reduce the demand for sworn officers, of whom about two dozen are available for patrolling.
The change could be especially helpful as city leaders brace for an uptick in activity during the warmer months. Last summer, business owners and residents complained about a deterioration of public safety downtown, and a reported rise in harassment and shoplifting.
Evaluating the claim that safety declined in Burlington last summer is difficult. Data exists to both back up and undermine that claim.
According to department metrics, police handled fewer incidents than they had in previous years — a decrease acting Police Chief Jon Murad chalked up to the department conducting fewer traffic stops. But the department did see a rise in what it deems “Priority 1” incidents — such as assaults, overdoses or robberies — in 2021.
Police Commissioner Stephanie Seguino, a University of Vermont economics professor who has studied racial disparities in Vermont’s policing data, said concerns about an increase in activity this summer should be based on statistical evidence.
“Yes, it’s important to be prepared for it, but with a judicious understanding of the data to help us understand what the need is,” Seguino told VTDigger.
Beyond the numbers, however, Murad said the addition of unarmed officers downtown will hopefully establish an atmosphere of safety, and de-escalate situations before they require a sworn officer to show up.
“When you have a public venue where there appear to be no rules and no consequences for breaking what rules there are, then you will have more disorder,” he said. “These will be positions that are able to help us maintain order in our city as we face what’s going to be a challenging summer.”
CSLs and CSOs
Nomenclature aside, the two types of positions occupy very different roles in the department, Murad said.
Community support liaisons, or CSLs, are trained mental health professionals who follow up with individuals dealing with mental illness or substance use disorder after they’ve had an interaction with police, the chief said. Rather than responding to dispatch calls as a sworn officer would, community support liaisons take over a case after full officers have de-escalated an incident.
“Police officers on a daily basis go to calls, they deal with the situation, they say … ‘I’ve dealt with whatever precipitating incident that caused me to be there in the first place, but I recognize that I can’t take it any further. Can you?’” Murad told VTDigger in an interview earlier this month.
The liaisons “bridge what were very pronounced service gaps between where the police can go with something and where other entities in our social service structure can go,” he said.
A push to hire two additional community support liaisons is underway right now, after the city’s police commission recommended doing so. Mayor Miro Weinberger endorsed the move in his State of the City address earlier this month.
Community service officers, meanwhile, respond to lower-level calls and perform basic patrols, according to Murad. “CSOs” can issue tickets when they witness someone violating a municipal ordinance, such as drinking in public, but cannot take anyone into custody or use force.
With their limited authority, it has yet to be seen whether the eight community service officers currently on the force will actually reduce the demand for police officers.
If, for example, a community service officer tries to ticket someone for having an open container of alcohol and the person declines to identify themselves, the community service officer would have to call on a full officer to detain them and determine their identity back at the police station, the chief said.
Still, such situations are “pretty rare,” according to Murad.
“We’ll see how many times the situation gets to that point,” he said. “We’re going to be learning about that this summer.”
‘Sometimes you need an officer’
Noise complaints are among the call types that community service officers will be asked to respond to, according to Murad. Yet an incident last weekend demonstrated how those calls can quickly become hazardous for police staffers who are unable to use force.
Police said Thomas O’Halloran, 45, of Burlington “became belligerent and aggressive and attempted to sic his dog” on a sworn officer and two community service officers, one of whom was still in training.
“He also struck the (sworn) officer with his fists and used racial slurs against the officer, who is Asian,” a press release said of the April 8 incident.
O’Halloran eventually barricaded himself in a North Winooski Avenue apartment, which police forcefully entered to arrest him after unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a voluntary surrender, the release said.
When asked about the incident, Weinberger said that while the dramatic escalation of a noise complaint is rare, it could inform how the department ends up assigning officers to calls.
“One possible take home from it is that there are limitations to how far we will be able to go with this strategy of (community service officers) responding instead of (sworn) officers,” Weinberger told VTDigger.
“My sense so far is that it shows that sometimes you need an officer for even something that started out as a lower-level complaint,” he said. “These issues can escalate and you want somebody who has the full resources of an officer.”
Weinberger has commissioned Murad to develop a plan for allocating officers that further incorporates the community service officers — a plan that Murad is in the process of testing, the mayor said.
“He is going to be doing that in the upcoming months before going forward and further expanding that program because he wants to make sure it works,” Weinberger said of Murad.
Further efforts
In addition to the two expanded police positions, Burlington is preparing to kick off its social-service crisis team, a city-sponsored group that responds to situations where someone is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Organizations interested in running the crisis team — which is referred to by some as the “CAHOOTS model,” after a similar system in Eugene, Oregon — were told to apply by April 15, according to the city’s website.
While the crisis team’s description says it will respond to incidents “where armed law enforcement is not necessary,” the city’s request for proposals says team members must “assess situations to determine whether police response is in fact necessary and then request and support police as appropriate.”
This spring, city councilors are also set to take up recommendations for implementing the findings of a city-commissioned report on policing. That document, dubbed the “CNA Report,” was called for in the June 2020 resolution that cut the police officer cap.
For now, however, Weinberger said he feels “very hopeful” that the community service officers and support liaisons will help achieve the city’s vision for police reform while keeping residents safe.
“I do genuinely feel that, with these two programs, we have new resources to make good at turning the situation around,” Weinberger said.
