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by Guy Page
A 48-year-old man was arrested Sunday morning after an altercation at Battery Park in Burlington escalated into an assault involving a firearm, according to Burlington police.
At about 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, officers were dispatched to the park for a report of an assault. Dispatchers advised that one of the men involved was reportedly armed.
Before officers arrived, dispatchers updated responding units that both men were now in the lobby of the Burlington Police Department on the Battery Park side. One of the men, wearing a green shirt, was reportedly holding a firearm.
An officer arrived and saw the man, later identified as John Vanhazinga, exiting the police department lobby holding the gun. Police said the officer ordered Vanhazinga to drop the weapon, which he did. However, Vanhazinga allegedly refused further commands to get on the ground and backed up against the building.
When officers attempted to detain him, Vanhazinga resisted, police said. After repeated warnings, officers deployed OC spray, after which he complied and was handcuffed without further incident.
Investigators determined the confrontation began as a verbal dispute inside the Battery Park band shell. Witnesses told police that Vanhazinga advanced toward the victim in an aggressive manner, removing articles of clothing and making a derogatory comment related to the victim’s protected class status.
According to police, when the victim tried to retrieve a firearm from a backpack, Vanhazinga grabbed the weapon and struck the man multiple times in the head, causing him to fall. The victim tried to flee to the other side of the band shell, but Vanhazinga followed and hit him again with the gun.
The Burlington Fire Department transported the victim to the hospital for evaluation of a head injury.
Vanhazinga was lodged on $1,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Nov. 3.
Vanhazinga is the former proprietor of a Ridin’ High, a business located across Battery Street from Battery Park. According to 2020 federal court documents, Vanhazinga had been involved in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana in Chittenden County since at least 2004, utilizing his business Ridin’ High to facilitate those efforts.
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Categories: Crime
Anyone who has been in Burlington’s Battery Park in the last few years knows that the bandshell has been functioning as a vagrant shelter, occupied predominantly by a “protected class” demographic. Verbal disputes there are a common occurrence. Too bad something escalated beyond that. The once-beautiful park can be a scary place, despite being LITERALLY ADJACENT TO the Police Station. Such is life in the Portland Oregon of the northeast, in the post-George Floyd era.
I can testify, that playing saxophone with my great uncle, the band stand reeked of urine, suspect it smells all the worse today. Such is the fate of Burlington, it has become an open latrine.