VTDigger covers crime, the court system, illegal drug use, law enforcement and prisons. Alan Keays covers the criminal justice system for VTDigger. He can be reached at akeays@vtdigger.org.
The city council approved the settlement during a special meeting on Tuesday. Three brothers brought legal action against the city related to an excessive force incident involving Officer Jason Bellavance in 2018. The settlement still needs to be approved by a federal judge.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has asked a judge to reconsider an additional count of simple assault in a 2022 incident in which police fired a projectile at a man reportedly high on drugs, screaming and holding a bloody saw atop a Newfane homeowner’s roof.
The collision took place on Route 105 near Lumbra Road, according to Vermont State Police.
The state can order a further competency evaluation, and if Zaaina Mahvish-Jammeh is released from Department of Mental Health custody, they will be held by the Department of Corrections, a judge wrote.
A Superior Court judge issued a scathing order late last week, calling out the Vermont Department of Mental Health for “continued obstruction of the criminal justice process.”
Trooper Zachary Trocki and Sgt. Ryan Wood had been cited to appear in court on misdemeanor charges of simple assault and reckless endangerment, stemming from an incident in which a 61-year-old man was seriously injured last year.
In a civil lawsuit, Michael Lewis alleges Mike Lyon, who recently returned as superintendent of the Southern State Correctional Facility after he was cleared in an unspecified misconduct investigation, prevented him from reporting alleged sexual abuse by a corrections officer.
The facility would fill a gap left after the closure of Woodside in 2020, but local residents overwhelmingly oppose its development.
A truck hauling a tiny house crashed into the single-lane railroad underpass bridge on Route 14 on Sunday morning.
A recent armed robbery sparked local headlines exactly a year after residents, seeing the number of burglaries nearly double from 2021 to 2022, first asked municipal leaders for security measures yet to be taken.
