The police need to be directly accountable to the people they are hired to serve.

Direct accountability is inherent to many interactions in our community.  If you own a car and pay a mechanic to fix it, you can hold the mechanic accountable if something goes wrong.  Did they not fix the problem?  Did they treat you poorly in the process?  You at least have the choice to go to a different mechanic.  If something goes wrong with policing, the consequences are often much worse than a broken car.  However, even though we pay the police to do their job and grant them special authorities, we don’t have the ability to directly hold them accountable.  If the police treat you or your neighbors unfairly, you can’t choose different police and you can’t vote to have them fired.  You can yell in the streets about it with your neighbors, you can call in to city council meetings by the hundreds, but none of us, not even City Council or the Mayor, can directly hold police officers accountable.  

So who are the police accountable to?

Throughout the Summer and Fall of 2020, citizens of Burlington tried to hold police accountable by demanding that the city fire three officers with recent histories of violence and excessive use of force: Jason Bellavance, Cory Campbell, and Joseph Corrow (see evidence below).  These demands peaked in the Fall of 2020 with a month-long occupation of Battery Park (across from BPD), and daily marches through town with hundreds joining each day. Despite the very clear message that many Burlingtonians didn’t feel safe with these men on the police force, the message from the city was clear: they didn’t have the power to fire them.  The power to discipline police officers lies solely in the hands of the Police Chief.  The only way for the Mayor and City Council to acknowledge the demands of its citizens was to initiate a severance agreement. Jason Bellavance was paid $300,000 and three years of benefits by the city to leave the Burlington Police Department.  

As it currently stands in Burlington, Vermont, police officers can only be disciplined, hired, and fired by the Police Chief (see the police department’s current discipline policy here, on page 42 of the Burlington Police Officer Association Contract). The Police Chief is accountable to the Mayor and City Council.  Though the Mayor and Councilors are accountable to the residents who elect them, this is far too indirect for meaningful accountability between police officers and the residents they are hired to serve. It is resident tax dollars that provide police budgets, it’s residents who call 9-1-1 in an emergency, and it is residents who are currently harmed when there is police misconduct. This is the focus of the proposal brought forward in Burlington by Councilor Perri Freeman and the residents of Burlington: to create a structure of direct accountability between police officers and their community.  A summary of that proposal can be found here.  In essence, the proposal establishes an independent board of community members, prioritizing representation of those historically harmed by and marginalized by police, that would have the power and resources to discipline police officers and the Police Chief.  Read the full proposal under the “Read the Proposal” tab above.

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