Updated Friday, Aug. 19, at 8:33 a.m.
A Twitter account apparently owned by the bystander injured Saturday in a police shooting in Burlington has blasted the police department’s handling of the situation and urged change so it doesn’t happen again.
That unnamed person is looking for a lawyer, too, according to their tweets.
Burlington Police Sgt. Simon Bombard shot 20-year-old David Johnson in the leg outside Johnson’s home on Manhattan Drive, according to Vermont State Police. Johnson had been holding a kitchen knife and threatening self-harm, then charged at another officer at the time of the shooting, state police said.
On Thursday afternoon, the operator of the Twitter account for Burlington-based apparel business SDR Clothing Company posted a thread of photos and comments about the shooting and “what happened to me.”
The thread described how news coverage of the shooting had reported that a bystander’s vehicle was shot and that person suffered minor injuries from the broken glass.
“That was me,” the writer said. “What the news hasn’t told you is that the bullet fired by Sgt Simon Bombard (Badge no 355) was literally two inches from my head. He fired three shots with multiple stopped vehicles and pedestrians down range.”
Bombard, according to the Twitter post, had his pistol drawn and ready to fire for about 5 minutes.
“I was stuck there despite having multiple bystanders down range the entire time, from residents of the building to neighborhood kids,” the writer said.
“This incident shows us all why we need to reform both how mental health crises are responded to and BPD’s use of force policies, incident management and firearms training. I’m very lucky to be alive, as is the man who called 911 for himself because he was in crisis.”
The post included photos of the broken windshield and what appears to be a bullet hole in it and blood on it. The photos, according to the post, illustrate the path of the bullet from the hole in the windshield to where it impacted the rear window.
“I am still looking for a lawyer,” the writer said, “so I’m not saying any more than what’s in this thread until I know what the best way to move forward is to make sure this never happens again.”
A similar thread was posted to the company’s Instagram. VTDigger could not reach the writer of the posts.
Following publication of this story, the owner of both accounts deleted the thread and wrote that they wanted their “quiet, boring little life” back and “for folks in my city to be safe” without ending up “in the middle of a media circus.”
Acting Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad did not immediately return a phone call late Thursday afternoon seeking comment.
Six hours after the thread was posted, the lead tweet had been retweeted more than 200 times.
Johnson was taken to University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington following the shooting where he was treated for his leg injury.
He was released from the hospital Wednesday and taken to Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington, where he was arraigned on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and reckless endangerment stemming from the Saturday afternoon incident.
He pleaded not guilty to those charges as well as a charge of domestic assault stemming from a separate incident two days earlier.
According to a press release from Vermont State Police, Bombard fired three shots, including one round that hit the rear of a Burlington police cruiser and another that struck Johnson in his left leg.
The third, according to the press release, “appears” to have passed through the pant leg of another officer, Brock Marvin. That changed the tratejory of the bullet, police said, “to an upward angle, ricocheted off the rear driver’s side of a parked SUV, and finally struck the windshield of a truck parked behind the SUV.”
Marvin had initially been out of the line of fire, but as he tried to evade Johnson, he moved into the area, police wrote in the release. Marvin and a person in the SUV were not injured.
About a half-dozen residents expressed concerns about the shooting at the Burlington City Council’s meeting on Monday night, including the fact that a bystander was injured.
Kori Skillman contributed reporting.
