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Burlington police at work along the Church Street Marketplace. Photo by Jim Welch/VTDigger

BURLINGTON — Black individuals were the subjects in more than a fifth of the cases where Burlington police used force over the course of seven years, despite making up only 6% of the city’s population, according to a report the department released Friday.



Burlington Police Department used force in 1,639 incidents between 2012 and 2018 — during that same time, police made 14,068 arrests and responded to 240,137 incidents, according to the report.



Four African American men sued the department earlier this year alleging police brutality, and body camera footage released by the department showed officers pushing and tackling the men. The Burlington City Council established a special committee to review police policies, and the committee’s work is ongoing.



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The report emphasized that the department responds to approximately 30,000 incidents and calls for service each year, meaning that force is used in less than 1% of all incidents. Use-of-force incidents have decreased by 40% in the last seven years, according to the report.



“This is a record of which this Department is proud, and on which it can build,” Deputy Police Chief Jon Murad said a statement released with the report.



But that statistic is only one point of comparison. John Jay Criminal Justice Institute professor Jon Shane said the department could also use the amount of force used compared to the number of arrests made as another benchmark.

“It’s not inaccurate, but it depends on what you’re trying to display,” he said.



The rate of force per arrests has risen since 2015, when it was used at a rate of nine per 100 arrests, according to BPD data. It was about 12 per 100 arrests in 2018.



The rate also rose compared to the number of offenses Burlington reported.

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Mark Hughes, a member of the police commission and the executive director of racial justice advocacy organization Justice for All, said that the report reflected that the department has a lot of work to do.

“It’s unfortunate, but not surprising,” he said. “I think we already knew before this report came out that we’ve got some challenges. This is really a systemic racism, a racial justice conversation.”

Hughes said his organization has advocated for use of force data collection from all of the state’s law enforcement agencies. He said there are two pieces of legislation pending in the Legislature that would mandate all agencies collect use of force data and would mandate appropriate use of force, de-escalation and cross-cultural awareness training.

“I think Burlington should be recognized for their willingness to provide some level of transparency,” he said.

Use-of-force subjects were injured in one in five instances, and officers were most likely to use force downtown late at night.

Hughes said the report reflects higher levels of policing in the Old North End, which has the highest level of use-of-force incidents outside of downtown Burlington.

“This is the blackest community as far as the Burlington Police Department is concerned, in their jurisdiction here in the city of Burlington,” he said. “It’s problematic, and emblematic of a larger problem: how are we policing our neighborhoods?”

Hughes said over-policing in the Old North End can translate into more arrests and negative effects in the community.



“There’s a lot of people that are getting hurt here,” he said. “There’s a lot of folks that are suffering, there are a lot of folks that are experiencing pain and trauma, there’s a lot of families … that are paying an extraordinarily high price.”

A black person who was arrested between 2012 and 2018 was 22% more likely to have force used on them compared to a white person in that same time period.

Physical force was used more with white suspects than black suspects, though the report also found that officers were more likely to point a firearm at a black subject than a white subject.

Physical force was used against 64% of white use-of-force subjects and 50% of black use-of-force subjects, while firearms were pointed at 25% of white use-of-force subjects and 39% of black use-of-force subjects.

The department believes that this disparity is caused by “firearm display only” incidents where firearms are pointed at a subject but no other force is used, according to the report.

One-third of black use-of-force subjects were involved in this type of incident, which the department attributed to search warrant executions or incidents involving a violent felony suspect. Only one-fifth of white use-of-force subjects were involved in firearm display only incidents.

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Hughes said the fact that 39% of black individuals who have force used against them have a gun pointed at them is “disturbing.”



“There is a huge level of gravity and a high level of trauma around having a weapon pointed at you,” he said.



The percentage of black individuals who are suspects and arrestees is also higher than the overall black population in the city, as 18% of suspects and 17% of arrestees are black.



Use of force covers any officer action “beyond that of persuasion.” Both firing a gun and grabbing a suspect’s wrist have to be reported, as does displaying a firearm. Pepper spray and pointing a firearm are the two most common uses of force, according to the report.



Incidents of force have fallen from a high of 317 in 2012 to 191 in 2018, the lowest number recorded in the last six years.



Hughes said he believed the city was working on racial justice issues, but that it was too early to see the results.



“Right now, we’re, unfortunately, pretty early in the onset of actually doing things that could potentially be impactful,” he said. “We just have not been doing them long enough to necessarily see the result. I hope that we see some results.”

This story was updated at 6:30 p.m.

Clarification: The excerpt on this story has been updated to clarify that BPD used force against black subjects at a higher rate than against white subjects, rather than more often.

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