Newly released videos from an incident nearly a year ago show a Shelburne police officer shoving a juvenile with his arm after being spat at.
The encounter recorded on Jan. 23, 2022, led three entities to investigate officer Cpl. Jon Marcoux — with disparate outcomes.
State police did not find probable cause to charge Marcoux with simple assault, but Chittenden County’s top prosecutor saw it differently.
“Our review found that he did use excessive force,” State’s Attorney Sarah George said in August. George asked state police to issue a citation to the Shelburne officer, but it declined.
The incident involved Marcoux, in the pursuit of a stolen vehicle, using some form of physical restraint against the juvenile driver.
The videos, first reported on Friday by the Shelburne News and released to VTDigger in response to a public records request, shed new light on the interaction between Marcoux, who has worked for the department since 2017, and the juvenile accused of taking her parent’s car without permission.
But almost a year after the incident, little else has changed. In recent interviews, George said she maintains her stance — and so do the state police.
“As I have stated before, based on my review of the evidence, there is probable cause to charge Officer Marcoux with simple assault. However, Vermont State Police disagree and have stated they will not issue a citation for the same,” George said Monday.
“I would like to pursue charges but need the help of VSP to do that in an efficient and consistent manner,” she said.
State police investigated last year but were “unable to establish the legal standard that probable cause existed to support a criminal charge,” spokesperson Adam Silverman said last August.
The agency has nothing new to add to its previous statement, Silverman said Monday.
“State’s attorney’s offices in Vermont have various ways to pursue and file criminal charges if they wish to take on a particular case,” he reiterated.
According to heavily redacted documents released to VTDigger last year, the episode first came to George’s attention on Feb. 8, 2022, when Shelburne Police Chief Michael Thomas forwarded the department’s administrative review of the use-of-force incident to George with a note asking her to “please review for potential criminal charges.”
George wrote back a day later to say she would request state police conduct a criminal investigation “about whether a citation is appropriate.”
George issued a Giglio letter, also known as a Brady letter, on Aug. 18 that shows the state’s attorney concluded the officer used excessive force and should be charged with simple assault. She said she does not currently have the resources to convene a grand jury on this case.
“It’s important to know that Vermont state courts don’t use grand juries, so if we want to convene one we have to use the federal grand jury. It is incredibly time-consuming and resource-intense and I do not currently have either,” she said.
Marcoux was placed on administrative leave after the encounter and returned to work last month, according to the Shelburne News.
Neither Thomas nor Marcoux responded to a request for comment Monday.
Video footage released
Four video clips, including car and body camera footage, released last week show Marcoux parking behind a pulled-over SUV on Shelburne Road and approaching the driver at about 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon.
The conversation indicates the driver is a juvenile who took the car without parental permission. The juvenile’s face is visually blurred and her speech is bleeped out.
The videos show Marcoux asking her several times to step out of the vehicle.
“Well, guess what? You’re going to be charged for operating without the owner’s consent,” Marcoux says in the recording. He says he has a sworn and written statement that the SUV was taken without the mother’s permission and asks for the driver’s license.
“At this point, you’re to be charged as an adult. I can bring you back in handcuffs to the station. We can go from there. My concern is that if I bring you back to the house, you’re going to be abusive to your mother,” he says.
He asks the juvenile to roll down the window and continues to ask her to step out of the vehicle, the videos show.
When she refuses to comply, he says, “You do what you gotta do. You wanna be treated like an adult, you’re going to be treated like an adult.”
When she eventually steps out, he asks her to turn around and put her hands behind her back. When she doesn’t, he grabs her arm, holds her against the car and handcuffs her. Then he grabs her jacket collar and walks her to the cruiser parked behind the vehicle.
After she says something — inaudible because of the bleeping — Marcoux pushes her against the hood of the police cruiser and adjusts the cuffs before putting her in the cruiser and strapping her into the back passenger side. The juvenile then leans toward Marcoux and spits at him.
The video shows Marcoux shoving her with his arm, forcing her neck and head to snap back against the back of the cruiser. “OK, that’s what we call assault on a police officer,” he says. “You will be charged for that as well.”
After retrieving a cellphone and keys from the SUV, he places them on the dash of the cruiser and drives. During the drive, he tells the juvenile, “We have this hood we can put over your head to stop you from spitting.”
The entire episode occurred in about four minutes, according to the videos.
The videos then show that, when the pair arrived at the police station a few minutes later, Marcoux went to the bathroom and grabbed some paper towels, saying, “The girl spit on me.”
Marcoux waited for a second officer — Bob Lake, according to the audio — and told him that the juvenile was spitting, that “her and I are not seeing eye to eye” and “maybe you will get some compliance.”
Both officers went back to the parked cruiser, opened the back door and spoke with the juvenile, according to the videos. The second officer led her into the station, and she gave Marcoux the middle finger with both her cuffed hands from behind.
The other officer led her into a room and Marcoux walked to an office to fill out a form.
The second officer’s body camera footage shows him taking off the juvenile’s handcuffs and asking if her wrists are OK. Then he directs her to sit at a table. “So what happened today?” he asks.
“We’ll take the fact that he yelled at you separately and we’ll talk about why mom called,” he says.
The juvenile sat calmly and spoke with him, according to the footage. He asked if she wanted some water and a coffee. “I can trust you not to mess up my room, right?” he says before heading out.
Clarification: This story was updated to note that the Shelburne News first reported on the release of the video footage.
