Federal immigration agents pushed ahead with a high-risk operation in South Burlington despite repeated warnings from local and state officials and a lack of coordinated planning, which turned a largely peaceful protest into a volatile standoff, according to two newly released police reports.
One of the reports, released Thursday by the city of South Burlington, documents an especially fraught exchange during the March 11 immigration enforcement operation on Dorset Street. The exchange, made public for the first time, underscores the pushback that law enforcement in Vermont faced when trying to get U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to back down in the face of hundreds of protesters.
South Burlington Deputy Police Chief Sean Briscoe approached ICE Supervisory Agent David Johnston regarding ICE’s “operational intention.”
“What’s the plan?” Briscoe said, according to the city’s internal review report.
“We’re getting a warrant and we’re gonna fucking enforce the warrant,” Johnston replied, according to the report. “We’re gonna fucking take those dudes!”
“At what point does it become not worth it for one person,” Briscoe then said to Johnston.
“When my management says it’s not,” Johnston responded.
A person described in the report as “another unnamed agent” then said to Briscoe, “you’d do the same thing. It sounds like you’re on their side! It’s very frustrating.”
Briscoe said he wanted to make sure the incident didn’t escalate, according to the report.
“Then you guys make sure it doesn’t escalate,” that agent replied. “We are getting that guy today! We’re gonna take him.”
The exchange was one of many provided in the two reports that seek to characterize local and state police attempts to deescalate the events on Dorset Street, as well as federal immigration officers’ continued resistance to doing so.
Vermont State Police released its own “after action” review less than a day after South Burlington released its report. The state police report also contained strong words for how ICE carried out the operation. Both reports were accompanied by several hours of body-camera footage from the respective departments.
Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison, in an introduction to the state’s report issued Friday afternoon regarding the actions of Vermont State Police, wrote that in her 36 years in law enforcement she had never witnessed a multi-agency operation in which one agency was so far out of alignment with the others.
“The resulting erosion of public confidence threatens to undo years of progress in community relations, placing all officers, regardless of agency, into a more volatile and distrustful environment going forward,” Morrison wrote.
“The decisions made by ICE agents on March 11th have created tension and distrust that local and state police are left to manage.”
Morrison wrote that no violations of the department’s use-of-force policy were found. The video evidence, she further wrote, supports that state police actions “were reasonable and proportional under the totality of the circumstances.”
“The protests on March 11 were particularly volatile because some people were physically obstructing federal officers from executing a judicial warrant and refused repeated orders to disperse and move,” Morrison wrote. “Under these circumstances, I determined that the allegations of excessive force by members of the Vermont State Police were not supported.”
The state police Office of Internal Affairs received 25 use-of-force complaints relating to the March 11 event, of which three were found “sufficiently specific” to review alongside bodycam footage, according to Morrison, who is responsible for overseeing and imposing discipline for any misconduct by state police.
Similarly, according to the South Burlington internal review findings, department officers did not use excessive force during the incident or violate policies on fair and impartial policing.
The city’s report included hours of police officers’ body camera footage captured at the scene.
A chaotic scene
The incident began on the morning of March 11 when ICE officials tracked two people to a Dorset Street residence, leading to a nearly daylong standoff as hundreds of protesters gathered.
The operation has led to criticism from political leaders and civil rights advocates across Vermont, who condemned the tactics ICE used in carrying it out. The incident also prompted scrutiny of state and local police for their role in physically engaging with protesters outside the home.
Both reports issued this week include timelines of events that reveal the chaotic and at times violent exchanges between law enforcement and protesters at the scene, as well as the refusal of ICE officials to back down.
Late in the afternoon, ICE officers obtained warrants to enter the home and arrest the man they had been seeking on a criminal charge of reentering the United States after he previously had been removed. However, after breaking down the home’s door and storming the residence, ICE officers did not find that man inside.
Instead, three other people inside the home were detained by ICE and taken into custody. None of those three people was named in the warrants. All three have since been released following court hearings. They each face further hearings in immigration courts.
The South Burlington report noted that as the standoff played out and clashes took place, some of the city’s police officers reported low battery power for their body cameras, while other officers’ batteries died altogether.
Burlington police were also on the scene and are expected to issue their own internal review report.
While law enforcement officials have largely denied allegations of misconduct, dozens of people, in hearings at the Statehouse and at Burlington City Council, alleged it was police who escalated the situation and were aggressive toward unarmed civilians.
Several have said that Vermont law enforcement officers, including the state police’s Critical Action Team in full tactical gear with weapons, aggressively shoved protesters away from the house before ICE officials entered it.
Protesters and activists said state and local police acted aggressively and helped clear a path for ICE to enter the house and unlawfully arrest three immigrants in violation of the state’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy.
Vermont police have said they were there to protect the public and prevent altercations between federal officers and protesters.
ICE officials did not respond Friday to requests for comment.
Auditi Guha contributed reporting.
