By Michael Bielawski
Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore spoke on the Morning Drive radio show on Tuesday in his defense of the infamous “kick” of an intoxicated man in custody that led to an impeachment effort and reports that he used excessive force.
The “kick” he calls a push can be seen here at about 20 seconds into the video posted by NBC News.
“It was not a kick, it was a push. There’s a lot of mechanics that differentiate the two acts,” he said. “So it was a seating maneuver to put him back on the bench and I’ve explained it many times and I don’t want to waste everyone’s time with that because it’s out there.”
In the video it can be observed that Grismore keeps his foot on the man’s thigh pressing him back into a sitting position on the bench behind him. Grismore said that’s what the trained maneuver is intended to do.
A caller noted it sat the suspect down without causing the man’s head to swing back and it protected the sheriff from the man who was intoxicated and antagonized.
He cautioned against focusing on “a 10-second video clip of a two-hour engagement.” Grismore noted that he had just been spit on at that moment before the push. He said in the whole two-hour engagement, it ended on a relatively peaceful note with him having encouraging words for the man who had drank too much and had the police called on him by his mother.
A co-hosts former state representative and former city councilor Kurt Wright noted that the impeachment committee has recently been advised by legal counsel that their efforts may fail.
“The main thing that they talked about for impeachment, the incident, the video that they call ‘the kick heard around the world’ …everybody saw the video if they wanted to because it was out there repeatedly but you were elected,” Wright said.
Wright continued that because the incident happened before he was elected, it seems that they cannot succeed despite the public money and time already invested.
Grismore said that he has yet to be approached by the investigation.
“They talk about this investigation which has taken over a year,” he said. “So it’s not Watergate, this is a simple thing. All the documents are there. And I’ve still yet to be interviewed.”
Numerous callers seemed to agree with Grismore’s explanation for the “kick” and the alleged bias of the prosecution. One caller asked, “Now that the Progressive regime has come up empty, do you have plans of going to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to get your certification back?”
Grismore explained that to run the department the certification is not necessary as he mostly does administrative work. Nonetheless he said yes, he and his legal advisors will be seeking to have that decision reassessed.
“We found a lot of difficulties I’ll say with how that process worked,” Grismore said. “… We intend to appeal this.” He later added, “there are a lot of corrupt pieces.”
He suggested that the lawyer, the judge, and others deciding his career’s fate all have conflicts of interest inhibiting his right to an unbiased trial. He also said it’s those coming after him who voters should be looking at.
Another caller said, “I think we should be alarmed that even though they knew the incident happened before the election, that they still conducted it and that the inquiry was held in secret even though we keep hearing about transparency being important to our judicial system.”
Grismore talked about his law enforcement career which includes developing their current crisis response team that “has a specific skill set and ability to respond to folks in crisis.”
The whole roughly 40-minute-long interview can be listened to here.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle