Burlington officials must disclose bodycam video showing the March altercation outside the University of Vermont Medical Center between a city cop and Douglas Kilburn, who died three days later, a judge ruled Monday.
Judge Helen Toor decided that the video relates to an arrest and cannot be withheld even if investigators believe it might interfere with their work.
The decision is a win for the Burlington Police Officers’ Association, which sued on behalf of Officer Cory Campbell. Unless the city appeals to the Vermont Supreme Court, the footage will soon become public and may shed new light on the controversial case.
“It will be good for everyone involved to see this, from Officer Campbell to the community at large,” union president Dan Gilligan said.
In April, the state’s chief medical examiner, Steven Shapiro, classified Kilburn’s death as a homicide. Shapiro was unable to identify the immediate cause of death but attributed it to several underlying factors, including hypertension, obesity, diabetes, vascular disease and skull fractures due to blunt-force trauma.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo and Mayor Miro Weinberger privately disputed the medical finding and went so far as to ask the governor’s office to stop its release.
City leaders believed video from the confrontation would help quell the political backlash. But the police department had earlier turned the case over to Vermont State Police, whose policy bars disclosure of bodycam video during active investigations because it could taint witness testimony. So the city withheld the video from the public and Campbell at the state’s request.
Campbell, meanwhile, refused to talk to state investigators unless he could first view the bodycam video, hospital surveillance footage and incident reports.
The union sued the city in April on his behalf, arguing that bodycam video associated with an arrest is a public record under state law regardless of any pending investigation.
Toor mostly agreed, with the exception of the hospital surveillance tape. Because the surveillance footage was retrieved solely for the death investigation, it could “at least potentially” be exempt from disclosure. She asked the city to explain how release of that video might interfere with what state law calls “enforcement proceedings.”
It may soon be a moot point. The state police already handed its report to Attorney General T.J. Donovan, who has yet to make a charging decision in the case.
Del Pozo and City Attorney Eileen Blackwood did not return calls for comment Monday. But Campbell’s attorney, Rich Cassidy, said he didn’t expect the city to appeal.
“We think it’s good for union members to have this kind of video be readily available, because our people do a good job of doing very difficult work,” he said.
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This is going to be good…….
Does this mean Walker, Burlington Ranger can now remember why he bludgeoned a disabled man with his fists?
RIP Doug, you didn’t deserve to die by a brutal beating by a Burlington Police officer. It’s very sad and quite shocking to think this kind of condoned police conduct goes on in a municipal police department in little ‘ole Vermont, but the truly frightening thing is this police officer is going to get away with beating a man to death.
Will the Police Union pay a fair share of the 6 figure monetary settlement the Estate of Mr Kilburn will be receiving or do they just shrug their shoulders and defer to the taxpayers to write the check for the actions of their defective member?
Release of the video may or may not help the accused…
“Does this mean Walker, Burlington Ranger can now remember why he bludgeoned a disabled man with his fists?”
You mean the big bully who assaulted the much smaller officer and then turned out to be a classic crybaby?
I am glad to see the normal; “Guilty until proven innocent” crowd is actively posting.
Just watched the video. I thought Officer Campbell should great restraint. Tough job.
Kilburn was aggressive, abusive, and out of control, after Campbell had already done him the courtesy of interceding on his behalf to get him into the hospital to see his wife, after he had been kicked out for being loud and belligerent and using foul language.
Kilburn gets out of his car and physically assaults Officer Campbell. Campbell defends himself but appears to show physical restraint. He never uses or even threatens to use a weapon against Kilburn. Kilburn is then taken into the hospital for medical attention of what appears to be minor injuries from the encounter that HE INITIATED. There’s no way the cop’s restrained self-defense can be considered the cause of Kilburn’s death.
Of course the cop-haters, without first seeing this video, immediately blamed the cop for being violent. The video shows this to be totally untrue.
Proverbs 17:15 English Standard Version (ESV) He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
are both alike an abomination to the Lord.