Protesters scuffle with federal law enforcement agents and Vermont State Troopers in South Burlington on March 11, 2026. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger A Burlington Police Department report released this week concluded that its officers didn’t use excessive force during an immigration en forcement action in South Burlington earlier this year. But in a response to the department’s report, the city’s Police Commission challenged some claims on which that determination was based regarding the department’s role in the events of March 11.  Burlington police spent only one hour and nine minutes on the scene of a chaotic immigration enforcement action on March 11. But their actions that day elicited more than 100 citizen complaints, multiple allegations of excessive force and a nearly 200-page review by the police department. Three people were detained by federal immigration officers, all of whom were later released, and none of whom were the person for whom federal agents had obtained a warrant.  A separate review by City Attorney Jessica Brown concluded that the department’s actions did not violate the Fair and Impartial Policing policy, a state policy that places some limits on how police departments can engage with federal immigration enforcement. That review also determined that Burlington Police’s actions did not constitute participation in an enforcement action or facilitating immigration authorities’ attempts to detain people. The city attorney’s assessment is at odds with some of the Police Commission’s statements, which included the assertion that BPD officers’ actions constituted support for an unlawful federal immigration enforcement action.  Activists and community members have also said that local and state law enforcement violated the Fair and Impartial Policing policy by collaborating with ICE and making their enforcement action that day possible.    Starkly different views Based on the same evidence, including bodycam footage, the commission and the department reached starkly different interpretations of some of the events of March 11.  Out of the more than 100 citizen complaints the department received about its actions on March 11, police identified four instances for review in which community members alleged Burlington officers used force on civilians.  The seven members of the commission are appointed by the City Council and provide recommendations to the police chief on investigations of citizen complaints, although their recommendations are not binding.  The department and the commission differed particularly over two citizen complaints that alleged Cpl. Julian Gonzalez used excessive force on community members. The names of community members who submitted the complaints were redacted in the reports. Neither the police commission chair nor police officials responded to a request for comment.  Julia Ginorio, who serves on the police commission, said in an interview that she thought the contrast between the police department’s and the commission’s understanding of events was in part due to different assumptions about federal agents’ and protesters’ intentions.  “There was some presumed bad faith on the actions of the public, the protesters who were there,” she said of the perspective represented in a police supervisor’s review of the citizen complaints. “I didn’t see that when I looked at the evidence.”  In one complaint, a community member alleged that Gonzalez pepper-sprayed them in the eyes while they walked backward in front of a federal law enforcement vehicle with their hands raised. Gonzalez was the only BPD officer who reported using pepper spray during the deployment to Dorset Street. He reported using pepper spray three times.   Lt. Richard Weinisch, the police supervisor who reviewed the complaints against Gonzalez, wrote that Gonzalez “used objectively reasonable levels of force, within policy, against individuals that were displaying active aggression by putting themselves in harm’s way, in the form of the path of a moving vehicle.”  Weinisch also wrote that the complainant who was pepper sprayed ignored verbal commands and impeded law enforcement actions by standing in front of the federal vehicle. The Police Commission disagreed.  “The Commission’s review of the body-worn camera footage does not support this characterization,” they wrote, referring to the interpretation of the complainant’s actions as “active aggression.” The commission said its review of bodycam footage showed the person “standing with hands raised, in plain view, at the front of a stationary vehicle.”  “Describing this as active aggression is only possible if the reasonable officer does not trust the officer operating the vehicle to act lawfully,” the commission added, saying that using force to move the community member “placed responsibility for the driver’s actions onto an innocent bystander.” A second complaint showed similarly divergent interpretations of protesters’ behavior. In it, a community member said Gonzalez bumped into them and then threw them to the ground as the person walked near officers.  “I was walking alongside a friend of mine as she was being escorted away by law enforcement officers. I was attempting to speak to the friend, telling her that I love her and that she was going to be ok, but not interacting with the officers or interfering in any way,” the person wrote.  In the police review, Weinisch wrote that the person had gone out of their way “to impede the actions of BPD officers that were trying to safely escort an arrestee to a marked BPD cruiser” and had ignored verbal commands.  The commission again said that its review of bodycam footage did not support Weinisch’s description of events. Commission members wrote that the person “was not blocking officers’ path, interacting with officers, or attempting to interfere with the person being detained. What the footage shows is two people bumping into each other, after which the officer used force to take [the person] to the ground without justification.” VTDigger reviewed police body camera footage made public by Burlington police and identified a sequence that appears to show the encounters described in the complaints. But neither the police department nor the police commission would confirm that this footage was the same footage their competing reviews were based on, and VTDigger could not independently verify the match. Police concluded that two other complaints, which were also directed at Gonzalez, were unfounded: one because it appeared to refer to the actions of an ICE officer who was standing next to Gonzalez, according to the report, and the other because Weinisch did not find an incident in bodycam footage or officer reports that matched the events described in the complaint.  Supporting ICE or public safety? The Police Commission also criticized Burlington Police’s role in the operation.  In the publicly released version of the report, which was partially redacted, the commission did not address whether its members believed BPD had violated the Fair and Impartial Policing policy.  However, the report stated that “officers did not examine the criminal warrant, verify the suspected offense, or inquire into probable cause,” and that they provided support for the ICE action. The commission’s remarks relate to the provision of the policy that prohibits BPD employees from participating in “enforcement activities intended to locate and detain undocumented immigrants without reasonable suspicion or probable cause of a crime” unless it is through an agreement approved by the governor. In contrast, the review by City Attorney Jessica Brown concluded that the department had neither participated in an immigration enforcement action nor facilitated the detentions that ICE conducted that day.  Brown’s review asserted that BPD officers were solely present to provide “public safety” by “preventing protestors from being hit by moving vehicles and/or subjected to force by federal law enforcement agents, and by protecting law enforcement agents from being assaulted by protestors.”  Interim Police Chief Shawn Burke did not respond to a request for comment.  The police report, for its part, seemed to challenge the idea that the standards outlined in the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy should even be applied to the events of March 11. “Given the fatal outcomes of other Federal Operations in recent months, it is unethical for officials to attempt to use the Statewide Fair Impartial Policing policy to challenge the decisions made by State and Local Law enforcement leaders to deploy resources in an attempt to maintain order and promote sanctity of life of all involved,” Weinisch wrote in the report. Weinisch also wrote that the state should provide clearer policies on state and local law enforcement’s role in situations of “civil unrest” related to federal enforcement operations.  Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said in a press release that she agreed with the police department’s findings on use of force and the city attorney’s conclusions about compliance with the Fair and Impartial Policing policy, although she added that she was “troubled by the gaps revealed in our existing policies that were not designed for the growing complexities we are seeing in federal immigration enforcement.”   Mulvaney-Stanak said in the release that she would lead the city in looking at existing policies, procedures and training for officers. Her office was unable to make someone available for an interview. Mulvaney-Stanak’s own review of the department’s actions was heavily redacted, although a use-of-force review conducted at the mayor’s request by former Vermont State Police Commander Ingrid Jonas, who previously served as Mulvaney-Stanak’s senior adviser on community safety, concurred with the police department’s report.  Burlington’s report added to the series of state and local law enforcement reports released since March 11, which have concluded that officers with the Vermont State Police, South Burlington Police and now Burlington Police did not violate state policies that place limits on use of force and participation in immigration enforcement during the operation.  Each of those reports criticized federal agents’ actions during the raids. In his report on the use of force complaints, Burlington interim Police Chief Shawn Burke wrote that federal officials’ approach “demonstrated a disregard for both public safety and officer safety.”  ICE did not respond to a request for comment.  Activists with Migrant Justice, a statewide advocacy group that focuses on immigrants and whose members were among the Dorset Street protesters, said the report from Burlington was disappointing but not surprising.  “We find the conclusions reached by the city of Burlington to be totally outrageous,” Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, said.  “In this instance, as in so many others, police aren’t capable of policing themselves. Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington officials defend police actions during ICE raid, but Police Commission pushes back. ...read more read less