Updated at 9:03 p.m.
In a stunning turn Monday, Mayor Miro Weinberger announced that the woman he had just named acting chief of the Burlington Police Department has been replaced — for operating a social media account under a fake name.
Deputy Chief Jan Wright informed the mayor that she had occasionally used a Facebook account under the name “Lori Spicer” and discussed the police department on the page.
The mayor’s office announced Wright was out as acting chief just hours after she was named to replace chief Brandon del Pozo, who himself resigned Monday after admitting he briefly using an anonymous Twitter account to troll a critic.
“While Deputy Chief Wright’s situation may be very different than Chief del Pozo’s, given the circumstances the department is facing, I found the failure to raise this issue with me in the lead-up to today to constitute a lapse in judgement,” Weinberger said in a statement.
The mayor said he named Deputy Chief Jon Murad to serve as the interim chief.
“Murad has confirmed explicitly to the City Attorney Eileen Blackwood and HR Director Deanna Paluba that he has never engaged in anonymous social media posting,” the mayor wrote in his statement.
He also said he’s asked Blackwood and Paluba to review the posts on the “Lori Spicer” account and report to him by week’s end if discipline could be needed.
“Deputy Chief Wright’s disclosure raises the possibility that problematic social media use is far more widespread within the department than previously understood,” Weinberger wrote.
The mayor said he’ll bring in an outside investigator and vowed that the department will adopt a social media policy.
The mayor’s office announced the news about Wright just before 7 p.m., as protesters had gathered outside of city hall and the city council prepared to meet. Among the agenda items up for discussion was del Pozo’s resignation, announced at noon Monday.
Social media posts show that “Spicer” engaged online with Charles Winkleman. He’s the same man who del Pozo trolled with his now infamous WinkleWatchers Twitter account.
In one thread, “Spicer” went after Winkleman for being “obsessed with Chief del Pozo.
“You can’t get enough of him,” she wrote. “He definitely lives rent free in your head. Seek help”
“Lol okay bro,” Winkleman responded.
During public comment at Monday’s city council meeting, Winkleman mentioned that specific post and pointed to the city’s argument that del Pozo’s bad behavior should be excused because it was related to an underlying medical condition.
“Does that sound like a deputy that cares about mental health?” he said. “I spent the last five months wondering if the police are following me, whether I am being monitored.”
Among the people “Spicer” followed on Facebook were Weinberger, Councilor Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7), Rep. Selene Colburn (P-Burlington) and Adam Silverman, the former Burlington Free Press reporter who is now a spokesperson for the Vermont State Police.
In April, “Spicer” wrote a recommendation for the Burlington Police Department on Facebook.
“The Chief seems to be a lot more transparent than other Chief’s in the area,” she wrote. “Seems as though the public holds the Burlington police to a much higher standard. I think that says a lot.”
Courtney Lamdin contributed reporting.
Correction, December 16, 2019: A previous version of this story misidentified the people “Spicer” follows on Facebook as her friends on the platform. And a prior version contained a misspelling of Councilor Dieng’s name.
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What a laughing stock! Headline should read “Weinberger surprised by presence of sociopaths in the Burlington Police Dept.”
WTF??? Are there any adults left in Burlington?
Has 7 Days asked Miro if he has any fake social media accounts?
Is this a news article or an OpEd piece? Your extraordinary bias is showing. “In perhaps the understatement of the year, he wrote, “Deputy Chief Wright’s disclosure raises the possibility that problematic social media use is far more widespread within the department than previously understood.” ” is a glaring example of this and frankly isn’t professional or responsible journalism
Nothing wrong with having a fake social media account, just look at the ones posted here that are using fake names. Sometimes it is the only way to have civic engagement with the public because they think that every city person is a liar and is always to cover up something. Hard to have civil conversation when the person on the other side already has misconceived notions on what they want the truth to be and not what it really is. Maybe if the public weren’t so nasty toward city officials they wouldn’t feel the need to have their own fake accounts.
@Ted Miles When “misconceived notions” are well deserved, can one be skeptical enough of our public figures? Those notions you speak of are more often than not well deserved. And when someone steps into public life they’re going to have detractors. Just a fact of the business. When so many are corrupt it does become easy to assume everyone is corrupt. Maybe that’s the mistake some people are making but I can’t find fault with the assumption. Just look at the sh** show in Washington.
@NoRest- Making an assumption is within itself a fault. Because someone does something wrong doesn’t mean the mass are wrong but the complete opposite. No reason to assume that because someone serves the public that they are automatically corrupt. That would be the same in private sector that if someone in your company steals something then it would have to be assumed that everyone who works there is a thief. Not sure where you assume the idea that “Many are corrupt” when there is nothing to support the “Many” idea. People deserve the fairness to be judged on their OWN actions and not the other persons actions. Innocent until PROVEN guilty.
Im confused about why Im showing up as a friend to Lori Spicer. I do have a pending Facebook request from her, but did not accept it. Maybe she was following me? Im curious about who else she attempted to friend and follow. It sure seems like she reached out to a lot of friends and colleagues associated with left politics in Burlington.
Just f-ing fire the entire BPD staff and start over. There’s probably not a worse police force in the US anyway.
So who else on the police force and city government has skeletons in their own closet? This is getting better and better!
Hi, Rep. Colburn: You’re right. The Spicer account was following you, not a friend of yours. Apologies, and thanks for catching that. It’s been fixed!
Burlington has a phenomenal leader in Jonathon Murad! I hope BTV can find some peace and resolution to all this unrest…
I commend the updates on this article and the removal of personal opinion and snark. It is now a news piece and not an OpEd.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program As the Vermont DOC Turns…
So this isn’t all the fault of using Ranked Choice Voting/Instant Runoff Voting? I’ll be damned.
Miro is right that Jan Wrights situation is very different than Del Pozos straight-forward lying. Lori Spicer – friended or tried to friend a number of people who are organizers or supporters of local labor movement, renters rights movement, police accountability, and other racial, economic or social justice movements, myself included.
As we only started the effort to identify others, its too early to tell how many, but given the facts even those only loosely or infrequently involved in these working-class political organizations received requests from this Lori Spicer, it could be dozens or even hundreds of Burlington-area residents.
Since Jan Wright conducted these surveillance and infiltration attempts, in her capacity of LEO, under false pretenses, we could make a strong case that our rights to be free of unreasonable searches have been violated. If this was done systematically as part of BPD internal initiatives, we could be looking at civil rights class action against the city for violations our 4th amendment rights.
Stay tuned.
We gave away our Rights with the “Patriot Act” way back after 9/11. This stuff here is just the obvious followthrough.
Land of the “free” . . .LOL . . . yeah, right.
As long the mayor and his co-conspirator, the city attorney, are in charge of any efforts to investigate the police, we can expect either a whitewash or the sacrifice of a scapegoat. It is the mayor and the city attorney who should be investigaed.
She let herself be named acting Chief and then she told the truth. I think our police department needs a good investigation into what’s happening there.
It seems to me that maybe the best response is for the police department to abandon social media altogether. And maybe ditto for our City and school system. What I have seen in each of these cases is:
1. Public officials try and use social media as a public relations and information dissemination tool.
2. These forums get taken over by extremist activists (on the right or left), pushing out all civil discourse and reasoned opinion.
3. The forums then no longer serve their original purpose – informing the public – but instead become private masturbation rooms for people whose egos far outsize their abilities, with Charles Winkleman being the textbook example of this.
4. The end result is that no public good is served by social media, and good people are chased away from ever serving in public roles. I’m fearful for the public search for both police chief and school superintendent look like in the coming months.. Will Burlington be able to attract quality candidates, or will they be chased away by BTV’s “activist” community?
Typo/misspelling: Councilor Ali Deng (should be Dieng).
There’s a difference between a fake account and an anonymous account. People should be able to have free speech rights and post anonymously on their own time on their own devices.
bless the blue…. got to love this turn. but really everyone has a fake account that’s what the internet is for to blast people in the comment section without having to state your name…. like whats a screen name for. Fun fact my real name is not NessyofChamp. I am not the river monster that lives in the lake….
Thanks, Oracle. We’ve fixed it!
Yes, all of the police officers, city employees and state employees in high positions should be asked if they have any aliases on social media. I got rid of Facebook for the reason of to much drama on there and to much gossip!
The only surprise in the comments is that some are defending fake accounts…
Unfortunate that too many don’t have the courage of their convictions to post using their real identities.
Having a handle for an account name is not that big of a deal. It doesn’t make it fake and I no sooner know who NessyofChamp is in real life than I do Douglas Shane. Besides, using your “real name” might just get you harassed by the police.
It speaks volumes to the lack of integrity in BPD leadership, that Deputy Chief Jan Wright would take the interim role before disclosing her own social media malfeasance to the Mayor who named her.
Did she forget why she was being named interim Chief?
I used to have a pseudonym. Can’t recall why I gave it up, but I did. Now there are people who hit Dislike when they see my name, but that really doesn’t matter. I like to stand behind the things I say – I also like to apologize if I was wrong. No one is right All the time.
I have confidence in Jon Murad, but I think the scandals resulting from Chief Del Pozo using a pseudonym, and his successor being found using one, are kind of silly. Are they crimes?
Social Media is not truly social. Real social media is when you talk to someone face to face, or on the phone.
Every day on the street I see people avoid the people they pass, because they are busy talking with people (or imaginary people) on their phones. Get real, folks. We are all real – analogue, too.
“but I think the scandals resulting from Chief Del Pozo using a pseudonym, and his successor being found using one, are kind of silly. Are they crimes?
No more a crime than my having a lightbulb out in my car when I’m taking my mother to the grocery store, but the municipal terrorists think I owe them something for that…
These people want to enforce malum prohibitum statutes on everybody else, they better learn to live by them or find other employment.
I could argue that being a cog in the propaganda state is a crime, against humanity.
Trump would have fired them too. Great work Burlington!! Let’s make Burlington GREAT again.