By Bob Audette
The Brattleboro Reformer
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Brattleboro police “blew it” by using excessive force in two incidents last July that involved electric stun weapons, said Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell at a press conference in Montpelier Monday afternoon.
In one case two peaceful protesters were shocked and in the second case a device was used against a teenage psychiatric patient at the Brattleboro Retreat.
“We reached the conclusion that Taser use in (the protest) incident was not appropriate,” said Sorrell, in a telephone interview with the Reformer shortly after the press conference. In fact, he said, “We reached the conclusion that they erred in both situations.”
An attorney for protesters Jonathan Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray said the attorney general’s report, along with a report commissioned by the town of Brattleboro, would be a major component in their federal suit against the five police officers involved in a July 24, 2007 incident in which his clients were shocked with Tasers.
“I would join in the Attorney General’s assessment that they blew it,” said David Sleigh of St. Johnsbury. “If two individual, professional and objective investigations conclude that this was excessive force, it’s hard to imagine it wasn’t, and that will be the foundation in our suit.”
Sleigh and Sorrell both found particularly troubling the fact that Brattleboro Police Department didn’t turn over Taser data to the attorney general until just before the report was done. To make matters worse, the department only had data for the Taser used on Kilmurray and not for the Taser used on Crowell.
“We only got information concerning one of the two units,” said Sorrell. “And that one was off by seven years. The Taser unit that was used on the male protester, we got no information whatsoever. Consequently, we have no independent data on the number of firings or the durations of the cycles deployed against Crowell.”
Detective Michael Gorman, Lts. Robert Kirkpatrick, Jeremy Evans and Charles Aleck and Officer Peter DiMarino have been named in the suit filed by Sleigh.
“The recklessness of the conduct is indisputable but what is also disturbing is what appears to be, at best, a lackadaisical attitude in gathering and preserving evidence of the incident,” said Sleigh. “It raises the specter that there was a deliberate attempt to withhold data.”
The available downloaded data for the Taser used on July 24 shows the use to have occurred on March 12, 2000, at 4:41 and 4:45 p.m. while the actual use took place at approximately 7 a.m. in 2007, according to Sorrell’s report.
The attorney general said he didn’t believe the delay in getting the Taser data to his office, or the loss of data related to one of the units, was deliberate on the department’s part.
“I hope not and I assume not,” he said.
In his report, Sorrell wrote that the Brattleboro Police Department made four mistakes on July 24.
“The Brattleboro Police Department, in apparent violation of its then-existing use of force policy, erred in repeatedly tasing two protesters engaged in a peaceful sit-in,” wrote Sorrell.
The attorney general also accused “the hierarchy of the Brattleboro Police Department (of failing) to provide adequate supervision and direction to the officers assigned ... to handle a peaceful protest at the site of a contemplated commercial development.”
Police should have given more thought to disassembling a barrel the protesters were using to prevent their eviction as well, wrote Sorrell.
In addition, the attorney general took the department to task for its record-keeping procedures. The police department “has been negligent in not accurately recording and maintaining data detailing the dates and durations of its Taser deployment,” wrote Sorrell.
Despite the finding, Sorrell says he is not calling for criminal charges against the Brattleboro officers or any other members of the department.
Town Manager Barbara Sondag, Selectboard Chairman Dick DeGray and Selectboard Vice Chairman Jesse Corum were not available for comment.
“Since this case is currently in litigation, the town has no comment until we have had an opportunity to review the report with our attorneys,” said John Leisenring, Brattleboro’s finance director.
There are clear differences between written reports and witness testimony on the issue of whether supervisory directives were issued to the police concerning appropriate uses of force attendant with attempts to resolve the protest situation, wrote Sorrell.
Kirkpatrick contended that neither on July 23, after first visiting the site, nor at any time before returning to the site the next day, did Martin -- or any captain of the police department -- discuss with him or issue orders on the issue of appropriate uses of force to resolve the protest situation.
“To the contrary,” wrote Sorrell, “in several updated written communications on police department letterhead to Acting Town Manager Barbara Sondag, dated July 30, 2007 and August 1, 2007, then-Captain and present Acting Chief Gene Wrinn wrote that then-Brattleboro Police Chief John Martin on July 23 had directed that the officers assigned to responding to the protest ‘would take a laid back approach’ to the problem.”
Martin allegedly said that “he did not want a heavy handed approach used with protesters.”
Despite Martin’s admonishments, wrote Sorrell, “There were no supervisory communications to Lt. Kirkpatrick on appropriate uses of force on the morning of July 24, 2007. There is little doubt in our minds that the hierarchy of Brattleboro PD should have provided more direction and guidance to the officers dispatched to the protest site.”
Former Brattleboro Police Chief John Martin asked the attorney general to conduct a review. In the use of a Taser on a juvenile male at the Retreat, Gov. James Douglas, in a Aug. 2, 2007, letter, asked Sorrell to review that incident.
The attorney general decided to expand its review to include police use of force during the period from Aug. 1, 2006, through July 31, 2007, “with particular focus on the two situations confronted by the Brattleboro police.”
“The Brattleboro Police Department was really put under the microscope,” said Sorrell.
On July 23, approximately 20 Windham County residents decided to conduct a protest on a Putney Road property to raise public awareness about the possible commercial development of a vacant lot into a truck stop. Their intention was to begin a community garden by planting flowers on the site and to maintain a physical presence for two to three days.
While most of the protesters had left the lot by the morning of July 24, Crowell and Kilmurray remained. When police arrived, around 7 a.m., the pair inserted their arms into a 55-gallon drum that was partially filled with concrete and steel rebar and locked themselves in using mountain climbing carabiners attached to their wrists.
Crowell allegedly suggested that they be denied food and water for three days. The police did not see that as a viable option for a variety of reasons. Eventually, the police decided to employ their Tasers as a pain compliance technique, wrote Sorrell.
Kilmurray was stunned twice and Crowell three times before they agreed to unlock their arms after which they were placed under arrest. Kirkpatrick, who was in charge of the scene, used his Taser for the first time in the line of duty on Kilmurray. DiMarino stunned Crowell.
As part of his investigation, Sorrell subjected himself to a five-second application of a Taser.
“I had been prepared,” he said, “but that was a long five seconds. The tasing was uncomfortable. I don’t want to pretend that it was any picnic. But when it’s over, it’s over.”
Copyright 2008 The Battleboro Reformer