Demonstrators have spent the last week staked out in Battery Park, demanding that the Burlington Police Department fire three officers. Now, the police union’s attorney has weighed in, arguing that removal of the officers would be a “gross violation” of their contracts.
Last night, the protests peaked in downtown Burlington, with more than 500 people demanding that three officers be terminated: Jason Bellavance, Cory Campbell, and Joseph Corrow. All three have been accused of excessive force and protesters argue their continued presence on the force is a threat to Burlington residents.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said Wednesday at a press conference that the city government can’t take more action against these officers because the city doesn’t have the authority to do so. He wants to continue talking with the Burlington City Council about how administrative rules could be revised to promote more accountability for police.
Last Wednesday, Acting Chief of Police Jon Murad told protestors that the issues involving the three officers had been resolved and there are no plans to “rehash” them.
Richard Cassidy, an attorney who represents the Burlington Police Officers’ Association, made the same case in a press release Wednesday.
“The city found no significant wrongdoing. The city’s decision was to impose a low level of discipline, and the employees and the union did not contest that discipline,” Cassidy said.
“The conduct of each officer was reviewed by the state’s attorney’s office and, in the case of Officer Campbell, by the attorney general. No wrongdoing found. The cases are closed as a matter of law,” he added.
Cassidy said if the city were to immediately terminate these officers, it would be a “gross violation” of the union agreement that protects Burlington police. If they were terminated, he added, it’s likely the union would file a challenge that would cost the city “millions of dollars” in back pay and arbitration fees.
“It’s unfortunate that some protesters are also making demands that tend to undermine rule of law,” Cassidy said. “If the demand that these officers be terminated were agreed to, that would not only damage the right of Burlington police officers to rely upon the law, it would undermine everyone’s right to due process.
“The demands that these officers be terminated play into right into the hands of those who wish to divide people of color from their natural allies, poor and working-class Americans,” he continued.
The Battery Park protesters have consistently declined to speak to the media about their critiques of the Burlington police.
However, the three Burlington officers have been at the center of a number of highly public cases.
In a 2018 incident, Corrow tackled a Black man named Mabior Jok to the ground, allegedly without provocation, knocking Jok unconscious. In April 2019, Campbell punched a white man named Douglas Kilburn in the face outside the UVM Medical Center, causing injuries from which he later died. Campbell was placed on administrative leave after the incident but was reinstated after Attorney General TJ Donovan said no charges would be pressed against him.
And in May 2019, all three officers responded to a call to a Burlington bar about a “verbal altercation,” and upon arrival, pushed and tackled three Black men to the ground. Only Bellavance was suspended for pushing one of the men to the ground, who was temporarily knocked unconscious, according to body camera footage that shows the man’s eyes rolling into the back of his head.
At a press conference Wednesday, Weinberger said he’s had conversations with some of the protesters, trying to find “common ground” and communicate to them that the city is limited in what it can do to further reprimand these officers.
“These are all incidents that were fully investigated by law enforcement officials … and cleared of any wrongdoing,” Weinberger said. “And that’s the process we have.”
He said he will continue to push with the Burlington City Council to revise the city’s rules restricting the mayor’s ability to take extraordinary administrative action.
“The way in which our discipline is done, currently, is constrained in our charter,” Weinberger said. “Elected officials have no role and that is the mayor has no role in that. That’s a frustration for me.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington police union tells protesters sacking cops would be ‘gross violation’.