PITTSFORD — Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore told the state panel in charge of regulating police conduct that he repeatedly kicked a detained man last year because he was worried about getting spit on — and, Grismore said, in order to protect the man’s safety.
Grismore, who also faces potential impeachment in the Legislature, an assault charge stemming from the kicks and a Vermont State Police inquiry into allegations he mishandled finances, appeared before the Criminal Justice Council on Tuesday for a daylong hearing into whether the panel should revoke his police officer certification.
The council took some seven hours of testimony but did not reach a decision. Members will likely reconvene the hearing after Thanksgiving, panel chair Bill Sorrell said.
Grismore was a captain in the sheriff’s office at the time of the incident, and went on to win election to the top job three months later as the only candidate for sheriff on the ballot.
Kim McManus, an attorney for the council, told the panel members there was “ample evidence” that Grismore violated the state’s use-of-force policy when he kicked Jeremy Burrows, which could be cause to rescind his Level II officer certification.
McManus called the two sheriff’s deputies who witnessed the August 2022 incident to testify on Tuesday, and both said they did not think Grismore’s use of force was necessary.
Prompted by his attorney, Robert Kaplan, Grismore argued the contrary, following what has become a familiar line of defense that he did nothing wrong. Grismore said he intervened in the situation because he didn’t think that the two deputies had control of Burrows on their own.
Body camera footage of the incident shows Burrows, who appears intoxicated, shackled to a bench in the sheriff’s office before falling on his face. The other deputies come over and help Burrows up, but he resists their prompting to sit back down on the bench.
Grismore — who has said that he was standing in the doorway nearby watching the scene unfold — then enters the frame and kicks Burrows onto the bench, before pressing his foot into the man’s groin area. Burrows stands up again, and Grismore again kicks him onto the seat.
Grismore briefly leaves the frame and comes back to put a spit hood on Burrows. The footage of the incident was played repeatedly for council members during Tuesday’s hearing.
During his testimony Tuesday, Grismore said that because Burrows had spit on one of the other deputies earlier in the day, he worried Burrows might do it again. Grismore was “hyper” concerned about contracting Covid-19 from Burrows’ spit, he testified. In order to maximize his distance from Burrows’ face, Grismore said he used “my foot, as the longest extension of my body,” to force the man back onto the bench.
Grismore added that he used his foot so he could apply force to Burrows’ hip area — as opposed to what the other deputies were doing, which was using their hands on Burrow’s upper body — to force Burrows’his body to sit down. Had Grismore also used his hands, he argued, Burrows could have fallen straight back and hit his head.
The deputies, he said, weren’t treating Burrows “in a safe manner.”
But a use-of-force expert hired by the state who testified Tuesday said Grismore’s response was far out of proportion with the threat Burrows posed to both the sheriff and the other deputies.
Eric Daigle, a Connecticut-based attorney and former state police detective, prepared a report earlier this year finding that Grismore’s conduct was “excessive and unreasonable,” as well as “contrary to industry standards,” court records showed.
Daigle said Tuesday that, when evaluating the threat posed by a suspect, an officer has to consider both the severity of the threat and whether the person could make good on it. Referring to Vermont’s use-of-force policy, Daigle said that no “objectively reasonable officer” — including the two deputies who were present for Grismore’s actions — would have intervened the way he did, in part because Burrows was handcuffed and shackled.
“There is probably no cop that I’ve ever talked to that has never been spit on,” Daigle said, and it is “the ultimate contempt.” But, “you can’t respond to spitting with a violent response. You just can’t,” he said, drawing an audible scoff from Grismore, who was sitting across the room.
“If his concern was a spit, well, then he should have just put a spit hood on (Burrows) as soon as he entered the area and started being uncooperative,” Daigle said. By intervening in the situation at all, Daigle said, Grismore made Burrows angrier and “escalated the situation. He made it worse.”
Daigle’s testimony prompted terse exchanges when he was questioned by Kaplan.
“Is it your opinion,” the attorney asked across the room, “that a police officer in Vermont who perceives that that police officer is about to be spit on does not have the right to defend himself, by using force, to stop the spitting?”
“It is my opinion that no police officer in this country has the right to use a strike — a kick — to prevent spitting. Period. The end,” Daigle responded, almost immediately.
Kaplan told the criminal justice council that when the hearing reconvenes, he plans to bring in a different expert on police use of force to testify. That expert, Kaplan has told reporters, will show how Grismore in fact acted in accordance with state policy.
The two deputies who testified Tuesday — Christopher Major and Karry Andileigh — no longer work at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Neither had spoken publicly since the incident, though both were interviewed by a state police investigator about it.
Major, who was the deputy Burrows spit on, said Tuesday he was never concerned about his health as a result, and both he and Andileigh testified that they were never worried about their own safety, for any reason, while dealing with Burrows that day.
Major said he was about to place another set of shackles on Burrows before Grismore intervened, which he said would have kept Burrows more secured. He said he did not think Grismore’s kicks were an effective way to subdue Burrows.
Grismore pushed back on that assertion, testifying that Burrows became compliant with the deputies only after he intervened with force.
Andileigh also testified that, after Grismore’s second kick, she intentionally positioned her body such that it would be harder for Grismore to come and kick Burrows again. Asked by McManus why she did that, Andileigh said she was “worried” by the use of force.
One of the sheriff’s office’s supervisors at the time, Mark Lauer, also testified Tuesday. Lauer conducted the department’s internal investigation into Grismore’s conduct, and he ran one of the two unsuccessful write-in campaigns for sheriff against Grismore.
Lauer later left his post at the sheriff’s department following the 2022 election.
Grismore’s conduct was unnecessary, Lauer testified Tuesday, and he found it “unbecoming of an officer.”
