NORTH HERO — A use-of-force expert hired by the state in its case against Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore called his decision last summer to kick a shackled man “excessive and unreasonable,” as well as “contrary to industry standards,” court records show.
The report, written by attorney and former Connecticut State Police detective Eric Daigle, played a key role in arguments Thursday morning in Grand Isle County superior criminal court over whether or not the simple assault case against Grismore should go to trial.
The sheriff, who is also facing an impeachment inquiry in the Vermont House over his conduct, has pleaded not guilty to the charge and moved in January to dismiss it.
Judge Samuel Hoar did not rule on the dismissal motion Thursday, after listening to almost two hours of testimony conducted by Grismore’s attorney, Robert Kaplan, and Grand Isle County State’s Attorney Doug DiSabito, who is prosecuting the case. Thursday’s hearing was the third time the motion to dismiss has come before the court.
The bulk of the hearing featured Kaplan questioning Jeremy Burrows, the man whom Grismore kicked. The defense attorney pressed Burrows to describe his mental state at the time of the incident and questioned whether the kicks resulted in injury. Kaplan said Grismore’s conduct did not meet the definition of simple assault under Vermont law, which reads in part that someone “recklessly causes bodily injury to another.”
As part of his questioning, Kaplan showed the court numerous clips from the more than two hours of body-worn camera footage that the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office released of the moment Grismore kicked Burrows and events surrounding it.
The video shows sheriff’s deputies responding to a call at Burrows’ mother’s house, where Burrows later threatens and lunges at one of the officers, prompting his arrest. Burrows is taken to the sheriff’s office and shackled to a bench. At one point, he falls flat on the ground. After two deputies help him back up, he appears to refuse orders to sit down. At that point, Grismore, who was also a deputy at the time, enters the frame and kicks Burrows back onto the bench before repeatedly pressing his foot into the man’s groin. Burrows stands up again, and Grismore kicks him back down again.
Burrows told the court Thursday that he was heavily intoxicated during his interactions with Grismore and the other deputies. In the video, he can be heard repeatedly slurring his words and can be seen stumbling. He says at least a dozen times that he wants to kill himself.
“I wasn’t in the right state of mind,” Burrows told the court Thursday. “I needed help.” He said he is currently living at a motel in Berlin and has not had a job since before the kicking incident in August 2022 because of a disability.
Burrows told Kaplan that he did not feel pain immediately after Grismore kicked him because he was intoxicated but did experience pain the next day. Burrows also contended that his memory of the incident was foggy — again, because he was so intoxicated.
DiSabito told the court that Burrows’ comments were consistent with sworn testimony he gave a Vermont State Police investigator last fall, in which he rated the pain from Grismore’s kicks “six” on a scale of one to 10.
The body-worn camera footage played back poorly on the courtroom’s large video screen throughout the hearing, and there were several points in which Kaplan brought his laptop to the judge’s bench. There, Kaplan, Hoar, DiSabito and Burrows crowded around to watch it. The judge said that he had never seen footage of the kicks until Thursday.
Grismore stayed seated throughout the hearing and made no comments to the court.
Kaplan conceded to the judge that Daigle’s report showed the sheriff’s conduct was, at least, a violation of Vermont’s use-of-force policy. In the report, Daigle — who is also a national trainer on use-of-force investigations and general counsel for the National Internal Affairs Investigators Association — disputed Kaplan and Grismore’s account that Burrows presented a threat of harm to Grismore and the other deputies present.
The two other deputies — Christopher Major and Karry Andileigh — have also told a state police investigator that they thought they had the situation under control before Grismore, who was off-duty at the time and not wearing his uniform, intervened.
Reviewing statements and records related to everyone involved in the incident, Daigle wrote in his February report, “would lead any reasonable law enforcement officer to conclude that (Sheriff) Grismore did not utilize his experience, proper training, and operational common sense during his response to Mr. Burrow’s actions.”
Kaplan contended, though, that there is a difference between a policy violation and a crime. He said the court should have a higher bar for finding Grismore guilty of breaking the law because he is a police officer who has to make spur-of-the-moment decisions about how to respond to a given situation. For that reason, Kaplan said, he does not think Grismore’s conduct should be considered “reckless” under Vermont statutes.
“Recklessness requires a conscious disregard of the obvious,” Kaplan told the judge. “It has to be much more than simply making a choice and being wrong about whether or not the force is appropriate under the circumstance.”
Hoar appeared skeptical of Kaplan’s argument throughout the hearing.
Standing in front of the courthouse after the hearing, Grismore said he was “feeling very good about” his case, though he suggested that he would not be surprised if the judge ruled against his motion to dismiss because “the state has a lot more leeway.”
Before taking questions, he complained to a TV news reporter that “you guys keep using the fucking video,” referring to the footage of him kicking Burrows, adding that he thinks his case is “one of the most highly publicized simple assault cases that the state has ever seen.”
The sheriff is also likely to face more scrutiny this fall over whether his conduct was a justified use of force. On Tuesday, the House committee tasked with determining whether to impeach him took hours of testimony from state officials on Vermont’s policies governing when force can be used and how police officers should do so.
And next month, the Vermont Criminal Justice Council is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to revoke Grismore’s law enforcement certification. According to a charging document online, the council will examine whether or not the kicks were justifiable.
