BURLINGTON — Police say four people wanted in last month’s killing of 38-year-old Amos Beede were arrested Thursday in San Diego, California.
The suspects, two men and two women in their 20s, were transients with “deep roots” in Vermont, according to police. Beede, a Milton resident, was a fixture on Church Street and well-known in the city’s homeless community.
The brutal assault, which police say was carried out with fists and feet, resulted from a long-simmering dispute between two separate homeless encampments in the Barge Canal area just off Pine Street.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said Beede’s killing is a potent reminder that, despite some progress, the city needs to do more to address the problem of chronic homelessness.
Beede suffered multiple blunt force injuries to his face and head in the May 23 attack. When police were notified several hours after the beating, he was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center. There he was found to have a subdural hematoma, facial fractures and several broken ribs, police said. He died Sunday in the hospital.
Erik Averill, 21, Jordan Paul, 21, Myia Barber, 22, and Allison Gee, 25, face second-degree murder charges in Beede’s killing. If convicted, they face 20 years to life in prison.
The four are being held in San Diego, California, and police said they did not have a timeline for their extradition to Vermont.
Beede made frequent trips by bus from Milton to Burlington, and was staying with friends in one of the two Barge Canal homeless encampments the weekend of May 23, because there is no bus service to Milton on the weekends.
Witnesses told police that one of the suspects smeared feces on a tent in the encampment where Beede was staying, and that Beede later retaliated by pouring bottles of urine on Averill’s tent. Once Averill found out it was Beede, he enlisted the other suspects to assault him, according to police.
Police were initially investigating whether Beede was attacked because he is a transgender man, but investigators said they now believe the assault was motivated by the escalating back-and-forth between the two encampments. Averill has a history of assaults on other homeless people that were not motivated by bias, police said.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said cell phone GPS and Automatic License Plate Reader technology, and the collaborative efforts of law enforcement agencies in New Mexico and California were crucial to the suspect’s capture.
Investigators now know the four suspects left Vermont the day after the attack in a silver Chevy Malibu registered jointly to Paul and Gee at Gee’s parents address in Vergennes.
They drove to Roswell, New Mexico, where Paul has ties, according to police. There, the suspects came into contact with Roswell Police on May 31, as the result of a domestic dispute between Averill and Barber.
Burlington detectives learned of that incident through a database search, and alerted detectives in Roswell who obtained a GPS warrant for one of the suspects cell phones. Body camera footage from a Roswell officer showed all four suspects were still together, according to Burlington Lt. Detective Shaw Burke.
Around the same time, Burke said that police were able to use witness descriptions of Paul and Gee’s Chevy to identify their vehicle, which was spotted twice by Automatic License Plate Readers in southern California.
The two readings suggested the suspects were “ringing the border but not approaching it,” del Pozo said. Their likely destination was San Diego, and investigators alerted the California Highway Patrol and the San Diego Police department.
The cell phone GPS investigators were tracking was powered on and helped San Diego Police locate the suspects, who were ultimately found at Dog Beach, a popular destination for transients, according to Burke. The four were arrested without incident, police said.
Chief touts investigative benefits of license plate reader technology
Del Pozo said at a news conference Friday that he recognizes privacy proponents oppose expanding the use of Automatic License Plate Readers in Vermont, but added that this is the second recent homicide investigation where the technology played a major role.
In the case of Chavis Murphy, who is charged with shooting a New York City man on lower-Church Street last December, a cruiser mounted ALPR device placed Murphy’s car leaving the scene minutes after the shooting.
Del Pozo said he believes officers would have been able to arrest the suspects before they reached Roswell if Vermont had a ALPR system like the one in neighboring New York, which police now know recorded the suspects’ Chevy multiple times the day after the killing.
If Burlington, or Vermont more generally, had an ALPR system, it’s possible the vehicle description provided by witnesses would have allowed police to identify the vehicle and make an arrest more quickly.
Investigators don’t need a license plate number to query the database, but rather they can enter search parameters such as color, model or other vehicle characteristics, Burke said.
Del Pozo said efforts to regulate the use of license plate reader technology in Vermont, which have focused on retention periods for license plate data and standards for querying the database, miss the value of the technology in police work.
“I believe there are legislators who, if they had their druthers, would have no license plate database or readers in Vermont whatsoever,” said del Pozo, who has testified at the Statehouse against further regulation of the technology.
Privacy advocates say the technology has a high potential for misuse, and if its use is to be expanded in Vermont, regulation will be critical to preventing abuses.
Burlington’s homeless encampments a challenge for city services
Unsanctioned homeless encampments spring up because of a lack of housing and shelter space, or because occupants don’t want to adhere to shelter rules that often demand sobriety.
They’re unregulated nature lends itself to violence and drug use, officials said.
“Our general posture toward these encampments is that they are unlawful,” Mayor Weinberger said.
Once the city learns of an encampment, city officials make contact with its residents to let them know they can’t stay and offer services, Weinberger said. Not only does Beede’s killing reinforce the need to create more shelter space and housing options for the homeless, it also shows the urgency to expand drug treatment options in the city, Weinberger said.
“These homeless encampments are riddled with substance abuse dependency, alcohol dependency and issues surrounding mental health needs,” said Lt. Burke “It presents not only in this case, but it presents in a lot of the work that police do in this city.”
The camps themselves present health and safety issues, del Pozo said, noting the squalid unhygienic conditions. Most involve trespass issues, and in the case of the Barge Canal encampments, likely expose occupants to harmful pollutants, he added.
The Barge Canal encampments are being partially preserved as a crime scene for evidentiary reasons, but the city has taken steps to remove the people who were staying there, del Pozo said.
“The city’s principal option at this point is to say, ‘We don’t know where you’re going but you can’t stay here,’” the chief said.
“It’s a challenge with no easy resolution,” del Pozo added.
Beede to be mourned, remembered at public memorial
“The thoughts of the entire community are with the family and friends of Amos Beede,” Weinberger said at Friday’s news conference, “By all accounts he was a very warm, giving, loving individual.”
Beede was an active member of the region’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, according to the Pride Center of Vermont, an organization that promotes the health and safety of LGBTQ people.
“Whenever (Beede) came into the Pride Center of Vermont, the first thing he’d do is pet my colleague’s dog, Georgia, and give her a big hello,” said Kim Fountain, executive director of the center, in a statement on its website. “He was always very cheerful when he came in to visit and spend time with his friends. He was out about being a transgender man, and I think he felt at home at the Pride Center.”
Last week the center hosted a community gathering to serve as a memorial for Beede and show support for his family. There will be a formal memorial service 6 p.m. June 8 at Perkins Pier in Burlington.
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