Support For Police
During a brief visit last week, we heard St. Johnsbury Police Chief Tim Page mention that it’s a difficult time to be a law enforcement officer.
He stopped by to drop off video from Officer George Johnson’s body camera of a tragic accident in which a dog lost its life (more on that in one moment).
We didn’t like the fact that we learned about the dog shooting via the dog owner. It was information the STJPD had a statutory obligation to report to the public. They didn’t mention anything about it until we asked them.
But forgiving that issue for a moment, Chief Page’s comment got us thinking about the police we have in the NEK and recent headlines featuring their work.
In one recent incident, Capt. Jason Gray encountered an alleged 17-yearold drug dealer from Boston who had a replica 9MM BB gun pistol and a lot of drugs in his possession at the time of his arrest. It was a BB gun, but looked perfectly real. We can’t help but think the weapon could very well of gotten the kid shot in other places.
Then we watched Johnson’s body camera footage from a recent tragedy. Officer Johnson is walking through the woods on the way to questioning a person of interest in an investigation. Suddenly a pit bull comes flying out of nowhere. Within a split second the aggressive animal attacks and appears to lunge at Johnson. The officer had a fraction of a moment to react before the dog was on him. Appropriately, Johnson used that nano-second to draw his service revolver and neutralize the threat with a single shot.
Immediately afterward, you can hear the emotion in his voice as he apologizes endlessly to the dog’s owner, shares his own affection for dogs, and finally helps the owner bury the pit bull. It was an awful situation in which Johnson did exactly the right thing; to a tragic ending. Then he showed tremendous compassion to the guy who just lost his dog.
Then we thought about local protests against police brutality in June when we watched our police come out of their St. Johnsbury station, calmly engage with protesters and take a knee in solidarity with them. To do so, they took a break from their investigation of a public death downtown on the same morning. We saw the same thing the
day before in Littleton and Lyndon, and those moments struck us as a dramatic contrast to the violent exchanges we’ve watched in other parts of the country.
About an hour into the otherwise peaceful St. Johnsbury gathering, police detained a person who allegedly wouldn’t clear Main Street for traffic. Other protesters attempted to impede that arrest and were also taken into custody. In the resulting fracas, Carmen Turnbaugh tumbled down the stairway in front of the police station as St. Johnsbury Police Lt. Mark Bickford cleared a path to the entrance.
In video captured by Jeremy Baldauf, we see Turnbaugh clearly interfering with law enforcement. And then we see what happens when a rugged, strong police officer has to move a much smaller person. It was an unfortunate moment that detracted from an otherwise uplifting series of events.
Baldauf’s video generated a lot of impassioned commentary. On one side you had critics calling for Bickford’s head over clear evidence of police brutality - at a protest against police brutality of all things!!! The other side pointed out that Turnbaugh was breaking the law and what would you have police do when surrounded and under attack?!!
As the intelligentsia took to Facebook to work through that dilemma, Turnbaugh and Bickford took it upon themselves to refocus everyone’s attention on what really matters. The pair met that weekend at the St. Johnsbury Welcome Center; apologized to each other for their roles in the incident; and agreed that the message of the protest should not be lost in conflict. They said they each “stand together with mutual respect.”
Town Manager Chad Whitehead commended Turnbaugh for her courage and conviction, and Bickford for his understanding and dedication to the community.
And the Governor took notice. “I thought that was just a great moment for us and a teaching moment for us. I think we can all learn something from it,” said Governor Phil Scott. “I believe that law enforcement, again, did what they could under the circumstance and the individual, the young woman, as well stepped up and saw that there was a broader good that could be developed in the aftermath. I thought it was a great moment, a great teaching moment.”
We agreed with Governor and thought about how lucky we are in the NEK to have such good people serving in local and state law enforcement. We had the same thought as we watched the tragic video of Officer Johnson’s harrowing encounter and his grace, dignity and humanity in the aftermath. — The Caledonian Record, Sept. 15