Dear Editor,
It is incomprehensible and deeply distressing that two separate juries have failed to convict Franklin County sheriff John Grismore of assault.
A widely viewed video leaves no doubt about Grismore’s action. Without provocation he repeatedly and viciously kicked Jeremy Burrows — a defenseless man, already handcuffed in custody, guarded by two on-duty officers, apparently too inebriated to stand, and who posed no threat to anyone. By what possible definition of the term is this not assault?
My point is not that Grismore should be fined and imprisoned, though it seems appropriate, but that he should not be given a pass for this violence because of his position. Mr. Burrows had a right to due process, to a judicial ruling on his alleged offense and imposition of a legal penalty, if a judge so decreed. He should not have been subject to capricious, pretrial punishment by a passing sheriff.
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Grismore’s behavior is a clear instance of brutality by a public servant sworn to protect and serve. Though it did not reach the level of offense of the Tennessee police killing of Tyre Nichols in a traffic stop last year or similar nationally publicized cases, Sheriff Grismore’s assault flagrantly violated the spirit and letter of the law.
All too frequently we hear of individuals gravely injured or killed while being detained on suspicion of some relatively minor offense. Often, while dazed, terrified or incapacitated, they have incurred the wrath of arresting officers by failing to comply quickly enough with orders, sometimes conflicting, shouted in incomprehensible rapid-fire jargon. Mr. Burrows’s crime: apparently he failed to sit down promptly when Sheriff Grismore ordered him to do so.
The real question is whether we are subject to the rule of law, as our country’s founding documents proclaim, or to the whims of individuals in a position to assert authority as they see fit. Two successive juries have failed the people of Vermont in their responses.
Judy Olinick
Middlebury
Read the story on VTDigger here: Judy Olinick: In Grismore mistrials, 2 juries have failed .