A $400 drug debt set off a chain of retribution that left a man dead and two others — including a 16-year-old boy — facing murder charges for the assault that began on Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace last month.
Court records made public on Tuesday shed some light on the circumstances behind the “mob-style assault” that a group of five men, four of them juveniles, carried out against 42-year-old Scott Kastner during a weekday afternoon along the city’s busy pedestrian mall.
Kastner’s killing was cited by Burlington city councilors when they voted recently to enhance crime and code enforcement, including against homeless people, at nearby City Hall Park. But a newly released police affidavit points to more complex entanglements between local youths, drugs and guns that underlie the crime. Kastner’s life is not the first in Burlington to be claimed by that combustible cocktail in recent years.
Police say a group led by Isaiah Argro, 26, and the 16-year-old boy cornered Kastner at gunpoint on August 11, knocked him to the cobblestones and struck him in the head more than 20 times. Kastner died several days later at the University of Vermont Medical Center from complications of blunt-force head trauma, the state medical examiner concluded.
Following the medical examiner’s finding, the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office charged both Argro and the 16-year-old boy with second-degree murder.
Vermont Superior Court Judge Tim Doherty on Tuesday ordered both defendants imprisoned pending further proceedings. Seven Days generally does not identify juveniles charged with crimes, even if they are prosecuted as adults.
Kastner was walking down Church Street with his girlfriend, Alisha Crosby, on August 11 when Argro and the 16-year-old approached them, she later told police.
The pair accused Kastner of striking the 16-year-old’s mother several weeks earlier, leaving her with a black eye. Crosby told authorities that, in fact, she had been the one who struck the woman. She had given the teen’s mother $400 to buy drugs, but the woman “kept the money,” so Crosby told police she beat her up, twice.
Surveillance cameras outside city hall captured the retributive assault that prosecutors allege the woman’s teenage son and his associates carried out. Argro grabbed Kastner’s shoulder and punched him in the head, sending him to the ground. Argro then pinned Kastner to the ground as the 16-year-old and two other juveniles, ages 14 and 15, kicked and punched him.
Kastner broke free and began to retreat toward City Hall Park through an alleyway on the north end of city hall. A fifth juvenile, police said, ran from the Church Street restaurant where he worked and joined the pursuit of Kastner. That juvenile later told police he had seen his friends fighting outside the restaurant and ran to help.
Around that time, the 16-year-old boy pulled out a handgun, pointed it toward Kastner and racked it. Argro managed to grab Kastner again in the alley, and the blows continued. One of the teens pulled out a cellphone to record the beating. As the assault continued toward City Hall Park, Crosby cried for help. That got the attention of police officers who happened to be patrolling the park. Argro and several of the teens fled, prompting foot chases through the city’s downtown core.
As officers pursued the attackers, Kastner and Crosby also left the scene. More than two hours later, however, Kastner approached a private security guard at a bank near the park and asked him to call 911. He was experiencing excruciating head pain and losing vision, according to the affidavit. By the time Kastner was placed in an ambulance, he appeared to be seizing, an officer wrote.
Kastner had internal bleeding and swelling in his brain. He died on August 16, five days after the assault.
Crosby told authorities that she had previously purchased heroin from Argro and identified an accused trafficker with whom Argro was associated, the affidavit states. City investigators contacted federal partners and learned that Argro’s number was saved on the phone of Jamal Curtis, a New York City man who faces federal charges for distributing cocaine and fentanyl in Vermont. Police then identified Argro as an “instigator” of the assault on Kastner in part by comparing video footage with social media posts.
Following the assault, the 16-year-old defendant contacted relatives of Crosby to inquire about Kastner’s health. “When informed that Kastner’s prognosis was not promising,” the teen “stated something to the effect of not regretting assaulting Kastner and that he would do it again if Kastner survived.”
State’s Attorney Sarah George said on Tuesday that she decided to bring murder charges against the two people who were “primary aggressors” in the assault, both of whom are also accused of possessing or brandishing firearms during it. Second-degree murder, which does not require evidence of premeditated intent, carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life.
“It was not a decision we take lightly,” George said. “I don’t take pride in charging a 16-year-old as an adult.”
During the arraignment, a public defender representing the 16-year-old boy sought his release under a 24-hour curfew, with exceptions to attend high school, where he is a junior. George opposed his release from detention, and Doherty sided with the state.
As the teen’s arraignment hearing concluded, family members of Kastner and the teen exchanged words in the back of the courtroom.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” a woman associated with Kastner told another woman who had been seated on the defendant’s side of the gallery.
“You better shut it,” the woman replied.
The teen remains incarcerated at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland. A follow-up hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, during which the state Department of Corrections must demonstrate that the teen is being held separately from adults in the prison. Vermont does not have a juvenile detention facility.
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