The mayor of Burlington blasted the head of the Vermont Police Academy on Friday for defending a controversial police training drill that left several officers injured.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said he was “troubled” by the comments of Richard Gauthier, the VPA executive director, who defended the “Hitchhiker Scenario,” which Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said left at least three BPD officers seriously injured.
The “Hitchhiker Scenario” was part of the 16-week basic training program for police recruits at the Pittsford academy. In it, a police recruit is struck in the head without warning and has to subdue a “hitchhiker” to successfully pass the test.
Weinberger initially demanded Gauthier not lead the investigation of the procedure as well as a separate, larger review. But he was incorrect in stating Gauthier had been “directed to investigate” the VPA reviews. A spokesperson for the mayor said his intent was to ensure the investigation was impartial given Gauthier had “loudly defended” the drill. In a comment to Vermont Public Radio, Gauthier described the punches delivered by instructors as “more like a swat.”
Gauthier said he never intended to conduct the two investigations now approved by the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, which oversees the academy. One will review the role-playing drills and whether they are appropriate. The second outside investigation will address questions by Chief del Pozo including whether other officers were hurt and whether the academy followed proper procedures.
Gauthier said Friday no contracts had been signed to start either of the investigations, which, he said, will be done by outside firms as ordered by the VCTC.
Reaction to disclosure of the drill earlier this week, Gauthier said, has been muted.
“We haven’t received much negative feedback,” he said Friday.
Gauthier confirmed the scenario had been modified to include less physical force, but has not been completely discontinued as some published reports have claimed.
A Burlington officer, Erin Bartle, has sued the state of Vermont for injuries, including concussions and hearing loss, she allegedly sustained after taking the training test three times in February 2017.
Meanwhile, a Washington County deputy sheriff, Mark Poulin, said Friday he was out of work for 20 months after being struck in the head during the “Hitchhiker Scenario” in January 2017 as part of his ongoing required training to maintain certification. The drill took place in Montpelier at the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, not in Pittsford, but was conducted by instructors approved by the Vermont Police Academy, according to Poulin and his boss, Sheriff Sam Hill.
“It was hell,” Poulin said of his time out of work. He suffered migraines and takes a monthly injection. Poulin said his injury was worse because he’d suffered a concussion about 10 years ago when he was struck in the head with a fire hose while working in Hardwick.
“There were some really dark times,” he said.
Poulin said he explored a lawsuit but “it kind of stalled out.” Instead, he filed a complaint with Sheriff Hill.
Poulin said five of the eight officers he took the test with were injured.
In an interview Friday, Hill said he reviewed the videotape of the drill and thought proper procedures had been used. He defended the drill and said officers need to practice real-life scenarios for their protection. He said two officers were hurt, Poulin and another deputy who suffered a spine injury. Other injuries were minor, “guys were sore,” he said. Poulin said another officer had a broken nose but like all of them, came to work the following Monday.
“It looked like valid training,” Hill said. He confirmed the trainers and the protocol were approved by the Vermont Police Academy. Hill said physical force was acceptable in training exercises in order to create real-life situations police will face; when he trained they used boxing to teach skills, he said.
Poulin identified the instructor who hit him as Joseph Carriveau, a Berlin officer who was accused of plagiarism for a paper he wrote when he was a trainee at the academy.
The Monday morning after the Saturday drill, Poulin said he had “such a massive headache I couldn’t see.”
“I lost a lot of time and I lost a lot from this injury,” Poulin said. His most persistent problem, he said, continues to be memory problems.
Gauthier said he did not recall hearing about the Poulin case.
“If we don’t get complaints from the field, then we don’t know about them, we can’t hear about them,” Gauthier said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington mayor insists police academy investigation be impartial.