New & Noteworthy...

Couple to Sue Brattleboro PD Over Tasering

September 12, 2007
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

BRATTLEBORO — Two protesters who were subdued with stun guns by Brattleboro police during a peaceful demonstration on a vacant lot pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges of resisting arrest and unlawful trespass.

The Dummerston couple is preparing to file a lawsuit against the Brattleboro police for the July 24 incident on Putney Road.

Jonathan Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray, both 32, of West Dummerston, rejected an offer from Windham County State's Attorney Dan Davis to drop the resisting arrest charges if they would plead guilty to the charge of unlawful trespass.

Davis said he proposed a $250 fine for Crowell, who has been arrested before in Vermont and other states for acts of civil disobedience, and court diversion or a $250 fine for Kilmurray.

After the brief court appearance, David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury attorney representing the pair, said he intended to file a complaint against the Brattleboro police and the town for violation of his clients' civil rights because they were stunned by the police armed with a Taser non-lethal weapon.

Efforts to reach Crowell and Kilmurray after their court appearance Tuesday morning in Brattleboro District Court were unsuccessful.

The use of the stun gun has prompted a review of the Brattleboro police's use of Tasers in the protester case, as well as another case involving a juvenile patient at the Brattleboro Retreat, a private psychiatric hospital.

The town has hired a former prosecutor to conduct an evaluation of the police department's use of the stun guns.

Sleigh successfully represented two St. Johnsbury area men who were stunned by St. Johnsbury police in April 2005, winning a $10,000 out of court settlement from the town after filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging excessive force.

Barbara Sondag, acting Brattleboro town manager, said Sleigh had filed the notice of a lawsuit with the town last week, and that the matter had been referred to the town's insurance firm, in this case the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, which provides liability coverage for municipalities and their police departments.

Brattleboro Police Chief John Martin has been on administrative leave for the past couple of weeks, ever since a consultant hired by the town to assess the police department found that the department had a serious morale problem.

Sondag said Martin requested the leave. She said she expects him back by the end of the week and that Martin's leave was unrelated to the Taser incident.

Sondag said that as far as she knew, the notice from Sleigh about a pending lawsuit was the first time the town had been sued over use of the weapons.

Tuesday marked the first time the police affidavit about the events that led up to the controversial incident became public, although the affidavit didn't say who gave the order to subdue Crowell and Kilmurray with the Tasers.

Crowell and Kilmurray had spent the night at the vacant lot owned by Cheshire Oil Co., which, in the past, said it wants to develop a convenience store and truck stop on the lot.

Crowell and Kilmurray were part of a group of about 20 protesters who were planting flowers and small trees on the site.

At some point, Crowell and Kilmurray chained themselves to a barrel with the words "More Gardens Less Trucks" painted on the side. The barrel was filled with dirt and concrete reinforced with rebar steel, with a chain through a pipe designed to thwart easy removal of the protesters.

"In viewing the barrel, it could not be determined how the two were connected," wrote veteran Officer Michael Gorman, who was one of four officers at the scene.

"Several more attempts to undo the subjects from the barrel were unsuccessful. At this point, both Kilmurray and Crowell were asked, again, to voluntarily detach themselves from the barrel … as a result of the noncompliance, the use of the department Taser units were utilized in an attempt to get them to remove themselves from the barrel," Gorman wrote.

Police later said the barrel and its design was "a commonly used protest tactic designed to hamper removal efforts."

Gorman's written affidavit details police conversation with James and Joji Robertson of Keene, N.H., who own Cheshire Oil Co., in which the Robertsons repeatedly asked police to have the protesters removed.

The Robertsons later said the pair had their permission to spend the night of July 23 camping, but later, on the morning of July 24, asked the police to have the protesters removed.