Burlington resident Reed Doyle says he saw officers threaten to pepper-spray a group of children in Roosevelt Park in June 2017. Doyle said that as one of the youths walked backward with his hands up, an officer pushed him forcefully with both arms. The boy, who appeared to be 11 to 13 years old, protested and was arrested, Doyle claims.
Doyle submitted a written complaint to the police department and police commission. Frustrated by what he said was a lack of followup, he filed a public records request for body camera footage.
Police denied his request. The ACLU appealed on his behalf. Police then said that Doyle had a right to view the footage, but only after it had been heavily redacted, for which they would charge Doyle several hundred dollars in advance. Doyle appealed in civil court.
“Mr. Doyle wants to inspect the police bodycam video because he believes law enforcement used unreasonable force against children and was not held accountable,” ACLU attorney Jay Diaz said. “Charging him to do so violates Vermont’s public records laws and undermines the purported justification for using bodycams — as a tool for police accountability.”
Vermont’s Public Records Act allows government agencies to charge for copies of records, but not for people to merely view them, the ACLU contends. In August, Washington Superior Court Judge Mary Miles Teachout ruled against Doyle, saying there is no “overarching distinction” between seeking copies or inspection of records. The ACLU is appealing that ruling to the state Supreme Court, saying that charging to inspect records puts them behind a “paywall.”
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo previously said his department was seeking to redact images of people captured in the footage to protect their privacy, as allowed under state law.
“Affordable technology will hopefully develop that will lessen the time needed to properly prepare body camera footage for release,” del Pozo said in February. “Until then, we will continue to abide by Vermont law in charging the preparation fees necessary to protect taxpayer interests in fulfilling labor-intensive requests for public information.”
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Burlington Police conducting shady business? Next you’ll tell me that water is wet.
How many times have the Burlington police done shady things along with other departments in this area? I can think of a few things off the top of my head. There has been a few where cops have lied about drug busts, shooting and killing a few people without good reason, the Colchester cop that was selling drugs and more. But most of them stick together. You don’t know what cop you can trust anymore. They should be made to take a polygraph test when something like this happens and let the public know what it says.
What an absolute load of rubbish. When we’re all captured on traffic and street cameras wherever we go in Burlington, there’s no justification for police to redact anything from body camera footage. And even if there were, the cost is completely excessive and nothing more than a smokescreen to keep the truth from the public.
Concerned people like Reed Doyle deserve our thanks. Let’s see what the footage shows.
“How many times have the Burlington police done shady things”
You start out accusing the Burlington PD, but then the examples you give are about OTHER PDs. Since you are accusing the Burlington PD of “many shady things,” could you please give specific examples?
How else can we identify the victims of police overreach unless we can see who they were interacting with? These kids are victims, and the cops are actively engaged in a cover-up, clothing it in words meant to deceive. Thank goodness for civic engagement and the ACLU.
*These kids are victims, and the cops are actively engaged in a cover-up . . .*
At this point you have absolutely, completely, totally no idea if that statement is true. But, hey, why not say it anyway, because that is what you believe, so it must be true, right? Congratulations, Ms. Trump.
Here’s a free program to redact, remove, or replace faces in videos: https://filmora.wondershare.com/video-edit…. There are others, I’m sure. This was one of the first search results I just got.
So much for transparency . . .
Del Pozo’s last quote in the article sounds like he is putting money ahead of public safety by “abiding by Vermont law”. He also sounds like he is delaying, maybe trying to let his officers know that he has their back when they behave poorly, otherwise they will not trust him.
The “taxpayers interest”, I thought, was that BPD is there to “Protect and Serve” the citizens of the city, not indulge in some CYA. The police budget is paid by the citizens of Burlington. There should be no paywall to get any accountability from BPD, otherwise the cops are nothing but an unaccountable privatized service who will do as they please and send you a bill after any interaction with them. The suit brought by Doyle and the ACLU is not frivolous.
The Chief did a nice job with his Facebook posting about the woman who OD’d a while ago . . . now he does this.
I wouldn’t want to be a cop. People don’t call the police because they are having a good day. It is stressful and the shifts are not short. In a previous job I had regular interaction with police from all over Chittenden County . Most of them were pretty good folks, a few not so much. Some were a little too zealous in the pursuit of their duties.
Know,
I only gave 1 example of an outside police department but the rest happened in Burlington…..
@ GI Gripe:
“I can think of a few things off the top of my head. There has been a few where cops have lied about drug busts, shooting and killing a few people without good reason, the Colchester cop that was selling drugs and more.”
So exactly which ones of these so-called “shady things” were the Burlington PD? Please do give the specifics.
Since when does a person have a privacy interest protecting their image when present on a public street?
The Vermont Supreme Court, some years ago, ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy and therefor its okay for cops to use telephoto lenses and electronic ears to pick up the conversation of suspected drug dealers in a parking lot.
Public servants should not be permitted to hide behind the dubious privacy interests of others to hide their practices and actions from public scrutiny.