Police unhappy with her decision to not hold them accountable

By Michael Donoghue, Vermont News First

Vermont’s two top state law enforcement officers blasted Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George on Wednesday for her decision giving a pass to six protestors arrested during a botched ICE-led attempt to capture an illegal immigrant during day-long disturbance in South Burlington on March 11.

George announced that she was taking no action on the three arrests made by Vermont State Police and said three people arrested by Burlington Police will be given a chance to participate in the Burlington Community Justice Center for a restorative process.

George did not make clear in her news release sent to Vermont News First on why she was providing different treatment in handling the criminal cases sent by the two police agencies.

Interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke said Wednesday that George had made his department aware that she was referring their arrests to an alternative justice.

“As a result, BPD will not be participating in the restorative process,” Burke said in a statement to Vermont News First.

The stiffest rebuke for George’s inaction on Wednesday may have come from Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison and longtime Vermont State Police Director Col. Matthew Birmingham.

They noted that the lawbreakers at the scene in South Burlington had told the arresting officers that Sarah George was on their side and they would never face criminal charges. The comments were caught on police body cameras, officials said.

Morrison and Birmingham said it sets a very poor precedent when police doing their job are told by lawbreakers that nothing will happen for their criminal conduct.

George is up for re-election this fall and will face at least one opponent in the Democratic primary in August. Franklin County State’s Attorney Bram Kranichfeld of Burlington has announced he will run for the 4-year post. He is a former chief deputy prosecutor in the Chittenden County office and was head of the criminal division for former Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan.

“Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George’s recent statement just gave permission for people at large gatherings to obstruct police officers and interfere with arrests. This is a disheartening decision that sets a dangerous precedent,” Morrison and Birmingham said.

“State’s Attorney George has a vastly different vision from our own for what public safety and the rule of law looks like. She has missed an opportunity to delineate between the lawful conduct the First Amendment protects and the lawlessness of criminal behavior that escalates volatile situations and harms communities,” they wrote.

“We take offense to State’s Attorney George’s suggestion that state and local law enforcement bear equal responsibility for the ‘unacceptable and perhaps criminal behavior’ that took place on Dorset Street,” Morrison and Birmingham said.

“Furthermore, to impugn the ability of the police to conduct fair, thorough investigations directly undermines all the cases in the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office, which relies on the investigative work of police departments each day to support every case the office is prosecuting,” Morrison and Birmingham said.

“The state’s attorney’s failure to bring charges in this matter is likely to embolden people at similar events in the future to cross the line into criminal behavior, placing the public and law enforcement at greater risk of harm,” their statement said.

“In fact, lawbreakers in Chittenden County already seemed to know they can act with impunity. Individuals at the Dorset Street incident repeatedly stated that State’s Attorney George would not prosecute them for their behavior that day,” Morrison and Birmingham noted.

“It turns out they were right,” the message concluded.

Several state troopers were seriously injured as they attempted to keep peace between the protestors and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

At least one trooper received chards of glass in his eye when a protestor broke a window in a state police van. A couple of female troopers ended with facial injuries when punched and assaulted, police said.

George did not address the injured police officers. 

“When reviewing all six of the cases I looked through the lens of law enforcement, the lens of the protesters, and the lens of the community. Looking for what the harm was, and who contributed to that harm. I see the purpose of prosecution to be, in part, to heal harm caused by the person being charged,” George said.

“Here, I am confident that some protesters escalated the situation and went beyond civil disobedience into unacceptable and perhaps criminal behavior, including the three individuals cited by BPD – but I am just as confident that there were some law enforcement officers who agitated, who escalated, and who responded in a way that may ultimately be deemed legal, but was also unacceptable – so to charge these six individuals with no criminal records, and expect that they bear the burden of all the harm caused that day – is not something I was interested in our office being a part of,” George said in her press statement.

“I also want to be clear that the immediate narrative that this was a mob mentality, that the protesters came there looking for a fight, that they were “agitators” – is all too familiar,” according to George.

“There was a time when Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer – were all considered agitators, were arrested, some prosecuted, and painted as enemies of the State and criminals for standing up for civil rights in a way that was unpopular. We must do better here,” she said.

“Finally, I am still reviewing all the available body cam footage and other footage – and waiting to review all the individual agencies reports/findings. However, I am still trying to figure out what I am to do if I disagree with any of those findings since my typical avenue of using the Vermont State Police to investigate is not available to me in this situation,” George said.

It would not be the first time George has faced that issue. George tried to get the Vermont State Police to arrest a local police officer for assault when investigators did not think there was probable cause. In the end George never took action because there were no witnesses to support her wish.

George, who has been combative toward law enforcement since being appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to serve as state’s attorney, took another shot at police in her final paragraph.

“I adamantly believe that we need an independent investigation and review of the March 11 incident, not done by any law enforcement agency. We cannot in good faith present findings from an investigation about whether law enforcement violated any laws when those investigations were done by the law enforcement agencies whose conduct is being questioned,” George said.

George made no suggestions about who could step in to fill the job.

Chief Burke said he saw it very different.

“BPD recognizes the degree of harm that was experienced on March 11 as a result of the actions of federal immigration officials, and we acknowledge the impact this harm has had on members of our community,” he said.

“At the same time, the rule of law must be upheld. Engaging in physical confrontations with law enforcement in the street is not protected speech or expressive conduct under the First Amendment,” Burke said.

“BPD encourages all community members to remain informed about their rights and responsibilities,” the chief said.