Suspect, cited and released, is Burlington resident and Somali refugee convicted in 2018 of machete attack on 73-year-old Meals on Wheels driver
By Guy Page
Abukar Ibrahim, 38, of Burlington was charged with aggravated assault and trespassing July 1 after Burlington police say he threatened to kill the person warning him against trespassing on a South Union Street property.
Abukar was arrested and jailed, with bail. [Editor – Previous reports that he was cited and released, as reported by Burlington PD, were incorrect.]
Police responded at 5:51 PM to a report of a man brandishing a knife and threatening an individual on South Union Street.
While en route, officers saw the man described by the caller leaving the area. He eluded officers, who recognized him from prior police interactions. Investigation revealed Ibrahim pulled a knife out and threatened to kill an individual when the individual was explaining to Ibrahim he was trespassed from the area.
Half an hour later, after canvassing the city, officers located Ibrahim and took him into custody. He was jailed, with bail, following arrest.
Ibrahim’s criminal history shows one felony conviction and one misdemeanor charge. The felony conviction was for his attack with a machete on a 73-year-old Meals on Wheels delivery driver in Shelburne, BPD confirmed today.
In early January, 2018, Ibrahim, then 32, assaulted 73-year-old Meals on Wheels volunteer Johanne LaGrange with a machete outside Harbor Place on Shelburne Road in Shelburne, after vandalizing vehicles and threatening other individuals nearby. Ibrahim “willfully, deliberately and with premeditation, and with intent to kill” assaulted his victim, as reported by the Daily Caller and the Shelburne News.
The Daily Caller confirmed that Ibrahim is a Somali refugee. “DHS can confirm that Abukar Ibrahim is a foreign-born naturalized United States citizen who initially entered the United States as the derivative child of a Somali refugee,” a DHS spokesperson in January, 2018 told the Daily Caller. “This underscores the importance of enhancing the screening of individuals seeking admission to the U.S. as refugees to improve the safety and security of the American people.”
Ibrahim reportedly was involved in a domestic assault case late in 2017. A judge prohibited him from possessing any weaponry.
According to WCAX, a Burlington resident named Abukar Ibrahim in 2017 reported scrawlings of racist graffiti at the Wharf Lane apartments in Burlington. The Arabic name is not uncommon, and it is not clear if the man who reported the graffiti is the alleged assailant. Neither are the particulars of Ibrahim’s life in Vermont. But there is some information about the history that led Somali refugees to Vermont.
1991 war in Somalia created refugee crisis – A graph in a 2019 Seven Days news report shows that Somali immigration peaked in 2004-05 at about 140 people per year, and afterwards continued, the numbers reduced but constant.
Many of the Somalis who moved to Vermont were fleeing the 1991 civil war. “The crisis forced a mass exodus of people who often had to leave their homes without their belongings, hoping to find a safe place beyond Somalia’s borders,” Mitch Wertlieb of Vermont Public reported in December, 2023.
Some refugees first spent years, even decades, in middle-eastern refugee camps resembling little more than an ‘open air prison,’ Wertlieb reported. While many Somali refugees have adjusted to the stark physical, social, educational and economic differences between their native land and Vermont, others – including many young men – have had difficulty making the transition.
More recently, legally-resettled refugees arrived in Vermont in May, 2024 from the following countries: Congo, 15 people; Somalia, 8. Nicaragua, 5; Afghanistan, 4.