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By Michael Bielawski
A man who has repeatedly been in Vermont headlines via police reports apparently sought and was denied mental health hospitalization by the state.
The Burlington police report from Tuesday, Sept. 3, states, “The court reported that the Vermont Department of Mental Health will not provide hospitalization for Mr. Ibbotson.”
The court judge imposed bail at $500 because Ibbotson has a significant number of charges and is a risk of flight. The judge wants a plan to protect the public as well as Ibbotson, and informed the defendant that he needs a release plan or residential treatment.
VDC has highlighted that this man has been arrested 69 times, which does not include all of his 230 encounters with police. As recently as about two weeks ago Patrick Ibbotson, 37, appeared in the VDC headline, “Suspected repeat offender Ibbotson held without bail – finally”.
The report states that local police had, “become a familiar figure in Burlington’s law enforcement circles” and “Over the past year, Ibbotson has been involved in nearly 230 encounters with police, resulting in 69 arrests, many for violating conditions of release.”
In another VDC report from just about a week earlier on Aug. 11, he was again in trouble with law enforcement. It states, “A Burlington man with 230 police encounters was released by a judge after police had arrested him twice within 24 hours – once for disrupting services at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Burlington.”
Just days later he was arrested again. “At 12:41 PM Tuesday, Patrick Ibbotson, 37, was seen exiting the Marketplace Parking Garage in possession of alcohol – a violation of his conditions of release. When Ibbotson heard a cop call his name, he darted into oncoming traffic. Additional officers responded and were able to take Mr. Ibbotson into custody.”
Ibbotson also has been a familiar figure at the St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Buell St., where leaders say he told a group of parishioners that he could kill them all.
A pattern in Vermont
A week ago WCAX did an investigative report on if there is a pattern of releasing non-violent repeat offenders into the communities of Vermont.
The report states, “In Vermont, any offense with a maximum prison term of more than two years to life or that may be punished by death is a felony. Any other offense is a misdemeanor. So, many recurring retail theft crimes and violations of conditions leave people on the street racking up charges. And many people in the community say they’re fed up with it.”
The report uses Ibbotson as an example of why policies need to change. It states, “That includes Patrick Ibbotson, 37, a suspect you’ve heard us talk about a lot on the news.” The owner of Kru Coffee on Church Street in Burlington is quoted in the report saying “I have ushered him [Ibbotson] out many times.” The story continues that Ibbotson wore a shirt that he allegedly stole from the store in court on at least one occasion.
VDC has reported that Ibbontson has a reputation regarding the Kru Coffee shop. The report states that “Burlington police say Ibbotson is also the prime suspect in a felony burglary that took place at Kru Coffee Collective August 12, 2024, after he was last released by the court on August 10.”
In another story from WCAX from January of 2024, they reported “Vermont’s courts have seen a revolving door of cases involving low-level criminal offenders with drug and mental health issues. Channel 3 received an advanced copy of a report by the Vermont Judiciary Commission on Mental Health and the Courts that attempts to address the problems.”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Keep Vermont Safe
Beyond time for someone to take out the garbage.
His current lifestyle is more pleasant, easier and profitable than doing the right thing, in other words, crime does pay well in Vermont. Hell, Montpelier is the perfect example of crime paying well.
Until it’s more beneficial for the person to be a reasonable citizen of society he will not change. Our system rewards criminals.
We also have no carrots for doing the correct thing. You can’t find a good paying job in our state. You can’t find affordably place to live and own. Vermont is entirely unaffordable and difficult to work with on a regular, normal society kind of way.
Try and develop a small community of say 50 homes in your town, the state and towns people will come out with torches and NIMBY stamps of complaint. The full force and effect of Vermont government will be against you. God be with the abuse will be epic. Think…Costco gas pumps 10 years to get permit.
Try and develop a drug net work of illegal drug dealing and you’ll quickly find free housing with your state funded sugar mama or dada, and no zoning issues to deal with, no enforcement issues, no fees or daily penalties like zoning and if you are caught doing something illegal by the state you will be set free because our officers profiled you, think Drug dealing meeting at drug den/chinese restaurant coming from New York in a taxi full of drugs…..set free because of profiling.
We make it much easier to crime than normal business.
Crime makes logical sense in Vermont.
This is our story.
There is an easy fix for this problem and I’m shocked the Dems and Progs haven’t presented the idea . . . simply decriminalize misdemeanors. Further, stop stigmatizing people by banning the use of terms like “police encounters”. As for the judges; stop setting “terms and conditions” then the “crimes” wouldn’t happen. The new Vermont way.
I think the police statement (and WCAX coverage of it) reflects a misunderstanding of the role of the health care system. Inpatient psychiatric hospitalization is provided for anyone who needs that level of intensive, brief stabilization. A person arrested for a heart attack while committing a crime would get hospitalization; so would a person with a mental health condition that warrants it. The fact that someone has “mental health issues” and is committing multiple crimes does not necessarily mean they have a psychiatric illness appropriate for hospitalization. A person who meets the criteria to be held on bail with any type of medical need is required, under the law, to receive appropriate medical care: a hospital for a heart attack or immediate severe mental health crisis; treatment in corrections for high blood pressure or outpatient-level mental health treatment. The standards are the same for any illness, and the Department of Mental Health cannot block someone from necessary inpatient care (nor does it make admission decisions.) “Denial” means a finding that it was not the appropriate and necessary care. A hospital is not meant to substitute for a prison, “even” a hospital psychiatric unit. Repeated criminality does not mean, as a definition, a need for hospital care. These issues are being confabulated — as they often are, in discriminating against those of us with psychiatric illnesses by labelling all criminals as mentally ill or all those with mental illness as to be more likely to be criminals.
An thought element not really being considered. These “Judges”, some medical people reject such a person to be hospital analyzed. Their very simple minds are totally wracked from reality when saying the guy shouldn’t be in an institution. Those judgemental people are the true crazies and need a cognitive mental test. Some idiot on a bench in a black robe decides, god the guy had 230 + 69 issues. The legal system is more corrupt than the guy being mental and they are mental. I can ref the VTSC as an example. Their decisions lack human reality and common sense.
Thank you, Anne, for making this distinction in your reply. Thank you also for the excellent, significant, and valuable work you do as one of the handful of voices of common sense in the Vermont legislature.
The difference between your worldview and that of the socialists, Marxists, communists, and leftist Democrats, is while you realize that mental illness is a very real condition, and yet criminals are still responsible for their choices, must still be held accountable for breaking the law, and ought to receive the components of punitive, rehabilitative, and deterrent sentencing, the other worldview wants to excuse and enable criminals and lawbreakers by calling everything a disease, and thereby considering them helpless victims.
At our last Crimes and Concerns community last January in Morrisville, there were several panelists from the mental health field who really blurred the lines and diluted the purpose of the discussion. The public has been justifiably upset about the trend towards serial arrestees and the failure to get them off the streets, and yet several on the panel were brought in to talk about mental illness. Yes, let’s address that, but after these folks are in custody. And to get them in custody, we need our legislators to step up to the plate and create new bail reform legislation with teeth in it for the Patrick Ibbotsens.
I think the guy knows he has a problem and being in a prison confines him and as taken care of 24 / 7 / 365. There are people like this. I’ve heard with winter approaching, some people know where they will be safe and warm, so commit a crime and in jail afterwards. Come spring they are released.
Having 230 encounters with police and additional 69 ties (per headline) indicates the guy knows he needs help. I’m not a Liberal, just trying to put a face on this matter. Seems he hasn’t been violent.
In a paragraph “Ibbotson also has been a familiar figure at the St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Buell St., where leaders say he told a group of parishioners that he could kill them all. ” If he’s been in a church often he seeks help. To highlight his serious mental state, he threatens, then maybe people will that a more direct notice.
BPD social workers Whitney and Cheryl told me Patrick Ibbotson is very dangerous and my personal experience with him verifies their statement. I personally saw him manhandle Father Raj, a priest who was kind to him, at St Joseph’s Cathedral. I have witnessed several disruptions of masses at the Cathedral by Patrick. Friends have told me of countless other disruptions at St Joseph’s and St Francis Xavier in Winooski. He burned down a building in Winooski. He set a fire in someone’s house in Burlington. He damaged property at St Francis Xavier church in Winooski. I have personally seen him him steal beer at Price Chopper on Hinesburg road. He is constantly destroying, disrupting, threatening, and stealing. I could go on and on. I am so disturbed and depressed regarding our state’s inability to deal with him that we should change our Vermont Strong label to Vermont blind and stupid.
ED, I come from a general analysis knowing people that I hac some knowledge about and that point of view. Your statement should be taken into serious concerns by “the legal system”, but obviously they don’t, just kick the bucket down the road. There are many such people and state’s have released these people onto society.
Being the public is not privy to the inner-psyche or detailed history of this 37 yr old man with a rap sheet that unfurls down I-89 and back again, the State of Vermont judiciary, social workers, and State’s Attorney’s office bat this guy around like a used up toy. They don’t care about him or the people impacted by his behavior. He is but one example of a failed system failing us all. Anyone thinking Patrick doesn’t know after several incidents that there are no significant consequences to his behavior is a an utter fool. Above all, thinking the Vermont judiciary and legal system is ethical or moral is even more foolish and woefully ignorant.
Melissa, as a person with some experience with Patrick, this is probably the most accurate statement regarding Patrick Ibbotson that I have seen.