BURLINGTON— Local leaders and members of the Burlington community gathered in City Hall’s Contois Auditorium Thursday night for a forum on drug trafficking and gun violence in the city.
“We know that we need to do more to address public safety, and the City Council knows that our community wants action,” City Council President Karen Paul told the standing-room-only crowd. “We know that we all yearn for a safer and stronger community.”
The event was the first of two public forums on public safety issues organized by the city after the council declared a public health and safety crisis in October, making substance use, homelessness, and crime its top priorities.
The aim of Thursday’s event was to inform the public of the steps local and state officials are taking to combat the recent rise in crime and substance use that the city has been experiencing, and to invite community members to ask questions and share their ideas on the topic.
The second panel, which will focus on substance use disorder and property crime, is scheduled for December 19.
The number of overdose incidents this year are on pace to exceed two-and-a-half times the average of the preceding five years, according to data presented at the forum by the Burlington Police Department. There have been 420 known incidents already recorded in 2023, up from 251 in 2022 and 145 in 2021. There have also been 16 gunfire incidents in the city so far this year, including two fatal shootings that occurred in November as well as a recent shooting that injured three students of Palestinian descent.
The panel, which included Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad, Lt. Mike Beliveau, and State Sen. Philip Baruth, D/P- Chittenden-Central District, presented to a crowd that filled up the ground level of the auditorium.
Two other panelists, U.S. Attorney Nikolo Kerest and Special Agent Alex Schmidt of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, were both unable to participate due to illness, according to Kara Alnasrawi, the city’s director of business and workforce development.
Alnasrawi, who moderated the event, also told attendees that Mayor Miro Weinberger couldn’t attend because he had Covid-19.
Murad told the crowd that his department has been succeeding in disrupting drug suppliers and traffickers rather than users, but that the increase in demand remains a primary problem.
“In the state of frank desperation that our community is, there is merit to addressing these issues with regard to enforcement and with regard to jail, but it is not how we will ultimately get a handle on this big problem,” Murad said.
Murad emphasized that, in general, his team was doing the best it could with a severely understaffed department, telling the audience that the number of total current police officers was 69, down from an average of just under 100 from the years 2015 to 2020.
“We don’t currently have the staffing to have a street crime team, and our drug unit is smaller than it has been in the past,” said Murad.
Murad said that the department is “attempting to re-staff and regrow,” and told the audience that the number of officers would hopefully reach more than 80 within two years.
The panel fielded questions from the audience about how best to contact the police department about particular issues and what specific communities, including immigrant communities, could do to promote safety in their circles.
Discussing the Vermont Legislature’s efforts to address public safety issues, Baruth pointed to the passage of several pieces of gun control legislation, including a law in 2022 that bans firearms from hospital buildings, and another passed this year that criminalizes negligent firearm storage.
Responding to a question submitted online about what Burlington could do to further restrict gun use in the city, Baruth pointed to the limitations imposed on the state by federal jurisprudence.
“We happen to have a Supreme Court right now that was picked in part because of their views on guns and they are in place to enact a regime around firearms that I find insane,” he said, eliciting laughter and applause from the audience.
Baruth also brought up the state law commonly referred to as the Sportsman’s Bill of Rights, which prohibits individual municipalities from regulating firearms.
“We’re still at a place in this state where it is pulling teeth every time you have a certain bill and you have to throw overboard things that seem common sense to you and me,” Baruth said of his efforts to push further firearm restrictions.
“Nothing I’ve said tonight means we’re not working every day going forward on this, because we will be,” said Baruth.
