Two local police agencies have denied Vermont Public’s request for body camera footage from the scene of the chaotic immigration raid in South Burlington. And Vermont State Police said they need more time to review the records before releasing them.
The news outlet filed requests for the videos from state police, South Burlington Police, and Burlington Police under the state’s public records law in the days after the March 11 incident.
The South Burlington Police Department denied the release of the footage last week because the “case” is pending and could deprive a person of a right to a fair trial. The city has not yet responded to Vermont Public’s appeal of that decision.
Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak declined to release the records after Vermont Public appealed the police department’s denial. The department also said the release of the video could "deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication."
Interim police chief Shawn Burke told the Burlington City Council on Monday that the department wouldn’t publicly release the body camera footage right now, due to an internal investigation into use-of-force complaints and a request for the footage from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Seven Days reported.
Legal experts say it's hard to make an assessment if those exemptions are valid.
The agencies cite the statuary exemption "where release would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, but makes no factual recitation about whose right to a fair trial might be at risk,” said Lia Ernst, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties of Vermont, in an interview.
Vermont State Police hasn’t denied Vermont Public’s request, but said the department will need “additional time to collect and review the records.” Vermont State Police didn’t have any update on how long that would take when asked on Monday.
The state’s public record law allows agencies to request a 10-day extension to fulfill a request if there are “unusual circumstances” like a “voluminous amount” of records.
Body cameras, a now-common tool in law enforcement, have been seen as a way to bring accountability and transparency to police agencies. More than two dozen Vermont departments use them. Vermont State Police only began outfitting all its troopers with the cameras in 2020, after years of delay.
The three police agencies are facing scrutiny for involvement in a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The federal agents detained three people from a house on Dorset Street, but none of the people were named on the criminal warrant that ICE had obtained. All three people have been released from prison, and one federal judge has questioned the constitutionality of the detentions.
Law enforcement officials have defended their agencies’ handling of the situation and said they were trying to both protect people from ICE and allow federal agents to execute the court-issued warrant.
Protesters gathered around the house during the day and attempted to prevent ICE from going inside. State troopers moved people away from the front door of the house to allow ICE to enter. In some cases, officers wrestled people to the ground during the violent clashes that broke out. Law enforcement officials say protesters spat at officers and threw objects at them.
State police cited three people at the scene with disorderly conduct, and Burlington police arrested four people, officials said last week.
Ernst said there is “extraordinary public interest” in understanding what happened on March 11.
“There's already a ton of footage available out there that folks have taken and made available,” Ernst said. “And so it's tough to see a justification that any of the purported harms that the public record act contemplates for justifying a refusal to release records don't seem to be implicated here.”
State police and South Burlington police have not opened any internal affairs investigations related to the incident. Burlington police are conducting a use-of-force review of one officer accused of using excessive force against protesters.
Vermont law enforcement agencies have sought to distance themselves from ICE and its tactics, while also blaming some activists at the scene, who police say, intentionally stoked the conflict.
The heads of the three police departments told lawmakers last week that they were conducting reviews of the incident and expected to make those "after-action" reports public.
There are some reports of activists being injured, including one woman who said she was concussed when an officer threw her to the ground, according to Seven Days.
Williston Police, Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife Warden Service, and the Department of Motor Vehicles Enforcement Safety Division also assisted during the incident on March 11, but in a more limited capacity.
Williston Police only provided assistance for traffic control and didn’t have any officers assigned to “crowd management, protest oversight of enforcement activities,” the department said in a press release.
Eight DMV inspectors were at the scene to assist with traffic control, the agency said this week. The Department of Fish and Wildlife had five wardens there who also helped with traffic control, the agency said.
