New & Noteworthy...Vermont AG: Police Force Excessive By Dave Gram MONTPELIER - Attorney General William Sorrell said yesterday that Brattleboro police used excessive force in two incidents last July in which they used Tasers to shock people, but that officers would not face criminal charges. "I'm sorry to report that the Brattleboro police blew it in both cases," Sorrell said. The comment came as he released copies of a 43-page report by his office on the use of Tasers and other weapons designed to be nonlethal by police in Vermont. Sorrell said the 28 police agencies in the state equipped with the weapons, which are used to subdue unruly suspects by delivering a 50,000-volt electric shock, generally have found them to be a valuable tool. He said Tasers result in fewer injuries than nightstick blows and that the pain they cause is over much quicker than with pepper spray. Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Tremblay and Burlington Deputy Police Chief Walter Decker joined Sorrell at a news conference to support those conclusions. But Tremblay said that as communities consider having their police get Tasers, there needs to be a good dialogue between police and the public. The attorney general's review was triggered by the two incidents in Brattleboro. On July 3, police used a Taser to subdue a teenager who had barricaded himself in a room and was destroying furniture and other property at the Brattleboro Retreat psychiatric hospital. Governor Jim Douglas requested Sorrell's review because the youth was in state custody at the time. In the second incident, officers used Tasers to get two protesters on July 24 to leave a vacant lot where they had attached themselves to a barrel and were refusing to leave. Jonathan Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray, both 32 and from West Dummerston, were part of a group protesting the planned construction of a truck stop. In the Brattleboro Retreat incident, Sorrell found that the use of a Taser was appropriate, but he said it went on for too long. The normal "Taser cycle" delivers the electric shock for five seconds; Sorrell said data that can be downloaded after the weapons are used showed that the teenager had been hit with the Taser for 10 seconds. "We reviewed no evidence to support the need for or the appropriateness of a 10-second firing," Sorrell's report said. "We believe that the duration of the tasing was excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary." As for the protesters, Sorrell said many police departments' use-of-force policies direct officers that they are not to use Tasers against people who are exhibiting passive resistance. Crowell and Kilmurray refused to detach themselves from the barrel and leave after each was shocked once. Kilmurray detached herself after a second time being shocked; Crowell was shocked three or four times, the attorney general said. "In our view, based on the evidence that we had to review, they should not have tased the two protesters even one time, let alone multiple times for each of them," Sorrell told reporters. He also faulted the Brattleboro department for not maintaining its Tasers to show properly the time they were used. Calls to Brattleboro's acting police chief, Eugene Wrinn, and Acting Town Manager Barbara Sondag were not immediately returned. Sorrell said the Brattleboro incidents prompted him to direct his office to conduct a broader inquiry into the use of less than lethal force by police agencies. The report covers batons or nightsticks, pepper spray and pepper balls, and beanbags full of lead BBs that can be fired from a shotgun. It cited several incidents of Taser use by police in Burlington, Rutland, Springfield, and elsewhere that Sorrell concluded were reasonable and may have prevented worse injuries to suspects or officers when police faced violent situations. |