By Guy Page
Two Connecticut men arrested in a St. Johnsbury police drug raid in February, 2021 and then released by a Vermont judge are now charged with violent gun crimes in Connecticut – including one murder.
Sherod Aldon Hackett, 24, was released by a Vermont Superior Court Judge Michael Harris in 2021. He is charged with the November, 2022 shooting of a woman 22 weeks pregnant at an auto parts store in Connecticut, according to a report in yesterday’s Caledonian-Record.
Hackett, 24, was arrested February, 2021 during a St. Johnsbury police drug raid on a Portland Street home. After he pleaded innocent to felony fentanyl and cocaine trafficking, Judge Michael Harris released Hackett on conditions and a $25,000 unsecured (no money up front) appearance bond.
Hackett reportedly had a beef with a woman store employee who he claimed sold him a bad auto part, and promised payback. He shot the pregnant woman, a store clerk, in the leg and hip. Hackett allegedly also shot a store clerk in the abdomen. He’s been charged with first-degree assault and other crimes, and is being held on $1.5 million bail.
Hackett is the second Portland Street drug suspect to be charged with a violent gun crime. Paul Downer, 25, of Hartford, CT is charged with murdering a grocery store clerk in Hartford on April 22, the Caledonian-Record reported yesterday. After the St. J drug raid, Judge Harris released Downer on $5000 bail to live with his parents in Connecticut. He’s now being held on $2 million bail.
Categories: Drugs and Crime
WTF VT JUDGE 👎👎👎
They’re good kids. just confused. Send social workers and psyche counselors to Portland St. FIRST next time! Not the police!
They should be shot for what they have done. Shot dead. Problem solved.
Reoffending? Attempted murder? Drug dealing? Obviously, the only solution to these crimes is to close our prisons & let more felonious lunatics onto the streets, legalize all drugs including Fentanyl, allow more demoralized & impressionable youngsters to engage in promiscuity and perversion, and penalize hard-working citizens for owning Constitutionally protected firearms.
Right, Taylor Small?
Drugs and guns across State lines? No federal charges? ATF and FBI were involved in the St. Johnsbury raid? The I-91 corridor is kicking it up gangland style. The Dept of Justice is doing as it is paid and instructed to do afterall. Taxpayers paying for it all in more ways than imaginable.
The February 2021 raid:
“Sherod Hackett, age 22, of Hartford, CT, charged with Trafficking Fentanyl
-Jonathan Headley, age 24, of Enfield, CT, charged with Trafficking Fentanyl
During the course of the search police located eleven firearms (two AR15 Rifles, two revolvers, and seven semi-automatic handguns). Two of the handguns were identified as stolen and one of the AR15’s was identified as stolen. Two handguns had the serial numbers filed off. Police were also able to locate approximately 84 grams of Fentanyl, 190 grams of Crack Cocaine, and US Currency in the amount of $7567.00.”
Title 18, United States Code, Section 924(c)(1)(A) provides, in pertinent part: “Any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime . . . for which the person may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, . . . uses or carries a firearm, or who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm, shall in addition
to the punishment provided for such crime of violence or drug trafficking crime –
(i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years;
(ii) if the firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 7 years; and
(iii) if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years.”
Thank goodness for our culturally aware Vermont judges for using our bail laws creatively and not imposing any undue burdens on the day to day operations of our essential street pharmacists. This subsequent carnage in Connecticut is the result a simple cultural misunderstanding. All Vermonters need to become as racially enlightened as Superior Court Judge Michael Harris and accept that people of different backgrounds and upbringings settle disputes in ways that we may find a bit over the top because of our intolerance and white privilege. Apparently, in parts of Connecticut, when a store clerk “disses” you, it is perfectly proper and customary that you as a customer can discharge a firearm into them and their fellow store employees to express dissatisfaction with the transaction. I sure hope that custom does not take root up north in Vermont. It’s hard enough for our stores to hang onto their employees.
Well written rich, I believe that current and future realities are that your comments reflect more realty than sarcasm.
Reality
So why have they tried to charge bartenders in part if someone drinks and drives and kills someone. They want gun manufacturers to be held accountable for gun related homicides. Why aren’t judges, lawyers, politicians, and the likenesses held accountable for the criminals they keep releasing in the public? Clearly they are out on the good names of those listed above.
The law in Vermont does allow bartenders, waiters/waitresses, the bar owner and even the landlord of the establishment to be held liable for the illegal and irresponsible acts of patrons…so that precedent has long been established…
Fortunately, federal law specifically prevents firearm manufacturers from being held liable for the illegal acts of their customers.
Not that this situation calls for pedantry, but unless the poor clerk was actually a cetacean, I don’t think she was 22 months pregnant.
Thanks to Middlebury College and Peter Shumlin …. enough said.
Isn’t this the diversity that these moon bats clamor for? A couple of nice young men from Hartford, Connecticut selling their wares and starting a business in Vermont. Every action has a reaction as in, when a beading heart judge of the Vermont judicial system refused to hold these two savages other people were hurt and one murdered. I don’t call them animals because animals only kill for food or when cornered. Savages have no redeeming values and will kill you and your family. They will kill just like the 5 time deported illegal savage from Mexico who murdered 5 in Texas last week. How many more savages will we allow to invade, murder and sell poison? Let’s just punish and restrict the rights of law abiding people, take their 2nd amendment rights away and call it “common sense gun laws”. Savages belong in prison, apparently no one here understands that criminals could care less about your “common sense gun laws”. Senator Sears, Sen Baruth.
While I fully agree with most of the above comments, the plain and simple truth of this is . . . the blood of those victims in CT are on your hands, Judge Micheal Harris.
Still not as dramatically obvious a story of failed policy as Sarah George releasing ABDIKADIR without bail (on a gun charge) THREE days before he blew someone’s brains out- in BURLINGTON.
And not a public word said by any outlet.
…any suggestion that the major media maintains a bias to the left is met with accusations of one being a paranoid conspiracy theorist…
I’m ashamed that the Vermont Chronicle didn’t have photos from their high school yearbook.
the judge has blood on his hands and needs to be punished. They keep letting scumbag criminals walk on conditions. I am opting out of the judicial system. I will do what is necessary to the next junkie that tries to break into my house or steal from me.
Of course they were stop pandering….. they have the same opportunities as everyone else they are just lazy and want the fast money and Don’t care who they have to kill. Make an example of them you progressive idiots.
Vt’s ?Prosecutors” and “Judges” need to spend considerable time with cops and drug agents. Also with the places that help victims recover as much as they can.
They also need to talk with recovering addicts, to show that recovery can happen – but adicts will not become free ” back on the street.
Sympathy and liencency heelng are for the young and first time offenders