By DAVE GRAM
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont
lawmakers are considering two bills that backers say will boost the
professionalism of police officers, but some law enforcement officials see them
as meddling in their affairs.
One would require part-time
police officers, including deputy sheriffs, to undergo the same 16 weeks of
training that full-time officers get at the Vermont Police Academy in
Pittsford. The part-timers now spend one week — that will be increased next
month to two — at the academy, with additional coursework and on-the-job
training while serving.
The other would strengthen the
authority of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, which oversees the
academy. The council would be able to hear allegations of professional
misconduct by police officers and have the power to strip officers of their
professional license.
The measures have the backing
of key lawmakers, including the chairs of the House Judiciary Committee and the
House Government Operations Committee. But they’re getting pushback from the
Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Vermont State Police, and the
Vermont Sheriffs’ Association, which represents the 14 county sheriffs’
departments.
Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg,
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the bills align with his committee’s
longstanding effort to support law enforcement with increased training and
resources.
‘‘We've tried to give them the
resources they need, as well as the accountability and training,’’ he said. He
called expanding the powers of the training council to discipline officers an
effort to give law enforcement ‘‘better tools to self-monitor their own
profession.’’
But Windham County Sheriff
Keith Clark, president of the Vermont Sheriff’s Association, opposes the bills
and says they will hurt police departments.
The professional discipline
measure ‘‘steps on some of my authority to manage my own personnel,’’ he said.
He said he knows his employees best and is better suited to come up with
solutions when problems arise among his 10 full-time and roughly 20 part-time
deputies.
Clark also took a dim view of
the measure to increase training for part-time officers. Most of the
part-timers have other jobs and would struggle to get time off for 16 weeks of
Police Academy training, he said. He generally tries to assign the part-timers
to less sensitive roles — directing traffic around construction sites, for
example, versus the road patrols that might deal with drunken drivers and
domestic violence, he said.
Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson,
D-Essex, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Clark’s practice for
part-timers is not uniform across the state.
Other professionals, from
architects to doctors, ‘‘do not have a different standard based on the number
of hours a person works,’’ Waite-Simpson said. ‘‘People carrying firearms and
carrying out the statutes we pass here, we expect them to be fully trained.’’
Clark called the training bill
a solution in search of a problem.
‘‘If the legislators could say
to me that of the last 50 shootings by police officers, 49 were by part-time
officers, that’s a problem. But that’s not been the case,’’ he said.
Clark, Public Safety
Commissioner Keith Flynn and others said top law enforcement officials are
working together to come up with rewrite of the training bill that likely will
call for specific training for the duties to which part-time officers are
assigned. Rep. Donna Sweaney, chairwoman of the House Government Operations
Committee, said her committee stands ready to review such a proposal.
