Jeremiah Smith, 44, of Burlington was sentenced Monday in federal court in Burlington to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm.
Smith was arrested Nov. 3, 2021, when police say Smith appeared to point a firearm at an Essex police officer.
According to court records, Burlington police received a report that a pickup truck was stolen from Pine Street in Burlington, and the truck owner said a 9mm handgun was in the truck when it was stolen.
According to court records, Essex police located the truck on Pearl Street in Essex with Smith inside. Police said he refused to get out of the vehicle, despite repeated requests. When police broke one of the truck’s windows to gain access to the vehicle, Smith pointed what appeared to be a firearm at an officer. Court records say the Essex officer then backed away from the vehicle, drawing his own firearm and ordering Smith out of the truck.
According to court documents, Smith refused police orders several times to get out of the vehicle, and at one point tried to drive the truck away, but the vehicle had been remotely disabled. Smith eventually got out of the truck and began walking away from the officers, at which point they took him into custody.
With Smith in custody, officers found a realistic-looking pellet gun on the driver’s side floorboard of the truck and a Ruger 9mm pistol in Smith’s jacket pocket, according to court records.
According to the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont, “Mr. Smith has four prior felonies that made it illegal for him to possess a firearm: a 1997 felony escape custody-furlough, a 2008 burglary, a 2018 felony false pretense or false token, and a 2018 felony aggravated vehicle operation without the owner’s consent.”
Because Smith has prior felony convictions, he is prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.
In the court case, Smith was represented by Stephen Barth, an assistant federal public defender. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. Gilman was the prosecutor.
“This incident put Essex police officers in serious danger, and the situation could have resulted in the use of lethal force if not for the appropriate, split-second decision-making of the officers involved,” according to a press release from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for Vermont.
Instead, officers displayed “extraordinary bravery and used effective tactics to take Jeremiah Smith into custody safely,” the release said.
According to a study conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2020, white Americans are 3.23 times less likely than Black Americans to be killed by police during a police encounter.
“I am pleased to see this individual held accountable for his actions that put our officers and the public in danger,” Essex Police Chief Ron Hoague said. “The criminal justice system should always do whatever is necessary to keep illegal firearms out of the hands of criminals.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misrendered a quotation from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for Vermont.
