The Burlington Police Department did not immediately release full video footage of an altercation between two Burlington police officers and a 19-year-old that resulted in complaints of improper use of force.
After VTDigger sought the video and published a news report about the footage and questions raised by the police oversight commission about the altercation, the department released the footage to the public on Thursday night.
The video that BPD released included a recorded statement from acting police chief Jon Murad, and dispatch audio leading up to the incident.
The body-camera footage depicts an altercation that quickly escalated when officers tried to detain a teenager. After attempting to evade the officers, the teen is pulled to the ground and, as he struggles with them, is shocked with a stun gun.
The altercation occurred on the afternoon of Jan. 7. After receiving a call that an individual had used a screwdriver to try to pry open a window in a vacant car, Officer Oren Byrne pulled up next to Mbyayenge Mafuta, a Black teenager who was walking alone a block away from the car. The color of his clothing and backpack matched the description given in dispatch audio.
The footage Burlington police released is pulled from Byrne’s body camera. It is the same footage that the city’s Police Commission has reviewed in its investigation of the incident.
Some on the commission said they found troubling the officers’ treatment of the 19-year-old, which they said escalated the situation needlessly.
Officer Meaghan O’Leary arrived about a minute after Byrne had first tried to stop Mafuta. However, in a violation of policy, she did not activate her body camera.
In the video, Byrne asks Mafuta to stop, grabbing his shoulder within seconds of exiting his car, and informs him he’s being detained. The teenager briefly puts his hands up and tries to walk away, asking the officer repeatedly not to touch him.
Byrne, while continuing to grab Mafuta, says, “I’m not gonna touch you if you stop.”
Mafuta grows distressed and shouts at Byrne as the officer continues to try to restrain him. Byrne appears to shove Mafuta twice in the chest as he walks toward him, at which point the teen yells, “What did you touch me for?” He again tries to walk away.
At this point, O’Leary arrives. She yells at Mafuta to “get on the ground,” and the two officers pull him down. A struggle ensues, dislodging Byrne’s camera, which is then covered in snow.
In audio, Mafuta can be heard saying the officers were assaulting him, and swearing at them. He then appears to yell, twice, “Don’t touch my neck.”
At a press conference Friday, acting police chief Jon Murad said it was Byrne, not Mafuta, who said “don’t touch my neck” in the recording. In affidavits, police said the teen tried to choke Byrne, and had left visible marks on the officer’s neck.
VTDigger was not able to obtain other documentation to verify that allegation. A witness whose testimony was summarized in police affidavits said that Mafuta had punched an officer, but did not describe him grabbing Byrne’s neck.
As the officers struggled with Mafuta on the ground, O’Leary shocked him with a stun gun.
In O’Leary’s affidavit, she wrote that she deployed the stun gun as Mafuta “pushed away” toward a nearby porch. She and Byrne then restrained the teen until other officers arrived, and took him into custody. The whole altercation lasted just over two minutes.
Byrne eventually reaffixed his camera, and muted it as police surveyed the scene.
The Police Commission began investigating the incident after a witness to the altercation filed a complaint with the city, alleging improper use of force.
Some commission members aired their concerns about the altercation at a meeting on Tuesday. Commissioner Melo Grant said the officers’ behavior had escalated the situation, noting that Byrne had tried to grab the teen before informing him that he was being detained.
“I think that just sets up situations that can get out of hand,” she said Tuesday. “I feel that way very, very strongly.”
Kerin Durfee, another police commissioner, told VTDigger on Friday she thought the video was “heartbreaking,” though, unlike some of her colleagues, she said she “did not share the shock and concern” about officers’ conduct.
“That is just a societal failure on a lot of levels for a 19-year-old man to have that happen,” she said. “To me, it’s a lot more than a use-of-force incident. It just hurts.”
Murad was adamant Friday that the interaction was entirely lawful, telling reporters that the footage “speaks for itself.”
“Reasonable suspicion absolutely existed at the time of that stop,” he said, giving officers the legal authority to detain him, even when he resisted.
Murad did not concede that officers should have tried harder to de-escalate the situation. “The officer does make those efforts,” he said.
He declined comment on whether O’Leary will face any discipline for failing to activate her body camera during the incident. According to department policy, officers must activate their cameras during any contact with civilians.
O’Leary has stated she forgot to turn her camera on.
The Police Commission is still investigating the misconduct allegations. However, some commission members have been frustrated by the police department’s decision to withhold body camera footage that was captured after Mafuta had been taken into custody.
Grant and commissioner Stephanie Seguino have both said they thought the footage, which contains witness testimony, is relevant to their understanding of the incident. As an oversight body, their logic goes, they should have access to it.
Murad said again Friday that he does not plan to share witness testimony with commissioners. “I have shared the nature of it,” he said, but owing to legal concerns, he would not share the testimony itself.
Other commission members have said they do not feel a strong need to view the additional footage. “It doesn’t help us with the use of force. It doesn’t contain the actual stop,” Durfee said.
What does concern Durfee, however, is the future of a 19-year-old who now faces felony assault charges, and who she believes has been failed by the system, and the city.
“My thought is, what happens now? I mean, we’ve followed the rule of law, quote-unquote, and now what happens?” she said.
She continued: “This is in the hands of all of us.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington police release video from stun-gun incident.