A judge in Vermont said no to the city of Burlington’s request to throw out a case that said police discriminated against and used too much force on a Black teen whose mother had called the police to teach him a lesson about stealing.
The 14-year-old with intellectual and behavioral disabilities refused to give up the last of the stolen e-cigarettes on May 15, 2021. He was physically forced to do so by two officers, according to the lawsuit and police body camera video that the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont gave to The Associated Press. The claim says that the teen screamed and fought while being handcuffed and pinned to the ground in his home.
The lawsuit and film say that he was given an injection of the drug ketamine, which makes people sleepy, and then taken to a hospital.
Officers are being sued by the teen’s mother who says they treated him differently because they thought he was aggressive because of his race. It also says that giving him ketamine by injection was “discriminatory treatment based on race.” The claim says that Burlington police had been to the home before and knew about the teen’s disabilities.
A Vermont ACLU lawyer named Harrison Stark said in a statement, “Too often, victims of police violence are denied their day in court because of an unfair legal doctrine called ‘qualified immunity.'” “We are thrilled that the Court agreed that this “get out of court free” card is not a reason to shut down the courthouse.”
The city did not respond right away to an email asking for a response. In February, a city spokesperson said that an investigation showed that police officers and fire department EMTs followed all city and state rules and laws.
Most of the time, the Associated Press doesn’t name children who are accused of crimes.
Body camera footage shows two police officers talking to the teen, who is sitting on a bed, calmly. So he does what his mother tells him to do. She searches through the drawers and finds most of the leftover e-cigarettes. She then tries to get the last one from him.
The police say that he won’t be charged if he gives them back the e-cigarettes. He doesn’t answer. After about 10 minutes, the police pull the 230-pound teen’s arms behind his back and pin him against the bed to take the last of the e-cigarettes from him.
The city said that the search and seizure were legal, that its police and fire departments are not affected by the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, and that they did their best to accommodate the teen’s disabilities. The judge agreed with the city’s claims that its police and fire departments are protected by qualified immunity.
On July 31, Vermont Superior Court Judge Helen Toor made a decision. “The crime was not serious, he did not pose an immediate threat, and he did not try to “evade arrest by flight.” She also wrote that the police should have taken into account that he was said to have a mental health problem. “That might have involved waiting more than 10 minutes before using any kind of physical force,” she said.
Toor also said in his writing, “The allegations are more than enough to support a claim of racial discrimination.” She also said that the court “has no reason to throw out any of the claims at this point on grounds of qualified immunity.” The city has three weeks to do something after the judge’s decision. Tuesday, a city spokesperson said in an email that the city did not want to “comment on or make predictions about the likelihood of any particular outcome as this case moves forward through the court.”
Recently, people have become more interested in the use of ketamine on suspects. A study led by The Associated Press found that at least 17 people died in Florida over a decade after being shot with sedatives by medical staff while being questioned by police.
After the city of Burlington looked into it, the mayor at the time told the fire department to look into the use of ketamine. The city spokeswoman said in February that the state has changed its rules to require a doctor’s permission before using ketamine. She said that paramedics did get permission from the teen’s doctor even though it wasn’t needed at the time.
