After police were surrounded by protesters during an arrest outside the Burlington Police Department Saturday night, “loudly objecting to the stop,” Acting Chief Jon Murad called out demonstrators for what he called “unacceptable and unlawful” attitudes towards police arrests.
The arrest in question occurred following a report from a Burlington Uber driver that his car had been stolen near Pearl Street on Saturday evening around 8:30. A few hours later, police say the missing car was seen directly outside the police department, on Sherman Street, facing northbound in the southbound lanes, with the driver engaged in conversation with Black Lives Matter protesters in Battery Park.
When an officer activated his emergency lights to stop the car, the driver exited the vehicle and sat on the hood of the car. The arresting officer was quickly surrounded by about a dozen protesters, according to police.
During the arrest, the passenger of the car got away from the scene. In a press release, police attributed the passenger’s ability to do so to the arresting officer “having to contend with not only the subject of the arrest and passenger but also with multiple observers noisily pressing too close.”
Protesters have routinely declined to speak with any members of the media.
In his press release, Acting Chief Jon Murad said the protesters actions “came very close” to breaking the law. He identified their alleged near-crime as “impeding public officers,” which has a maximum sentence of three years behind bars.
However, Murad also noted that other protesters stepped in to try and prevent their associates from interfering with the arrest.
The Battery Park protesters — who number in the hundreds for nightly marches to City Hall to demand the firing of three Burlington police officers who are accused of use of excessive force — have a trained team of de-escalators who lead responses to any possibly-threatening actions that occur during the protest.
“This arrest was made much more complicated and fraught because people very nearly stepped over a line from lawfully observing to criminally impeding officers performing their duty,” Murad wrote in a statement.
Murad claimed that such impediments do not make observers, officers, or suspects more safe. However, he noted that the protesters who de-escalated the situation could be a sign of “common ground on which we and the protest organizers can build.”
“But this belief that officers doing their work in the field can be interrupted or blocked — which we’ve now seen during two arrests and one emergency response — is unacceptable and unlawful,” he concluded.
The previous interactions that Murad referenced include an incident on Aug. 26 in which a Black man was arrested on College Street for alleged road rage, and was briefly surrounded by protesters, who then marched to the police department to demand answers about his arrest, and an incident on Aug. 31 in which a counterprotester showed up to Battery Park with an assault rifle allegedly to intimidate peaceful protesters, and police attempted to respond, but were stopped at the intersection of Pearl and Pine streets by protesters with locked arms.
Police identified the driver in the most recent encounter as Abdifatah Sheikh-Bile, 27, of Winooski, who was released on conditions following his arrest. He was charged with possession of stolen property, operating without consent, driving with a criminally suspended license, and two counts of violation of conditions of release. Sheikh-Bile has an extensive criminal record.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Police accuse protesters of ‘nearly’ committing crime of impeding officers during arrest.