A Vermont judge has denied the city of Burlington’s request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that police used excessive force and discriminated against a Black teenager whose mother had called law enforcement to teach him a lesson about stealing.
When the 14-year-old, who has behavioral and intellectual disabilities, failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes on May 15, 2021, two officers physically forced him to do so, according to the lawsuit and police body camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. The teen was handcuffed and pinned to the ground in his house as he screamed and struggled, according to the lawsuit.
He was injected with the sedative ketamine and taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.
The lawsuit, filed by the teen's mother, accuses officers of treating him differently because they perceived him as aggressive due to his race. It also alleges that injecting him with ketamine was “race-based disparate treatment." Burlington officers had visited the home before and were aware of the teen’s disabilities, the lawsuit says.
“Too often, victims of police violence are denied their day in court because of an unjust legal doctrine called ‘qualified immunity,‘” Vermont ACLU attorney Harrison Stark wrote in a statement. “We are thrilled that ... the Court has agreed that this ‘get-out-of-court-free’ card is no excuse to close the courthouse doors."
The city did not immediately return an email seeking comment. A city spokesperson said in February that an investigation found that officers and fire department EMTs acted according to city and state regulations and policies.
The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify minors who are accused of crimes.
Body camera video shows two officers talking calmly to the teen, who is sitting on a bed. His mother tells him to cooperate; she goes through drawers and finds most of the remaining e-cigarettes and tries to get the last one from him.
Officers say if he turns the e-cigarettes over, they’ll leave and he won’t be charged. He doesn’t respond. After about 10 minutes, the officers forcibly remove the last of the e-cigarettes from his hand by pulling the 230-pound teen's arms behind his back and pinning him against the bed.
The city argued that officers conducted a reasonable search and seizure; that its police and fire departments are not subject to the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act and that they made reasonable efforts to account for the teen's disabilities; and that its police and fire departments are protected by qualified immunity, according to the judge.
"The crime was not serious, he did not pose an immediate threat, and he did not try to ‘evade arrest by flight,'” Vermont Superior Court Judge Helen Toor wrote in her ruling July 31. The officers also should have taken into account his reported mental health condition, she wrote. "That might have involved waiting more than 10 minutes before using any kind of physical force," she wrote.
Toor also wrote that “the allegations are more than sufficient to support a claim of racial discrimination." She also wrote the court “has no basis to dismiss any of the claims on qualified immunity grounds at this stage.” The city has three weeks from the judge's ruling to respond. A city spokesperson said by email on Tuesday 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.”
The use of ketamine on suspects has recently come under scrutiny. At least 17 people died in Florida over a decade following encounters with police during which medical personnel injected them with sedatives, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found.
In Burlington, after the city investigated, the mayor at the time ordered the fire department to review the use of ketamine, and the state has updated protocols to require a doctor's permission, the city spokesperson said in February. Paramedics in the Burlington teen's case did get a doctor’s permission even though it wasn't required at the time, she said.
FILE - This image provided by American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont shows Burlington Police Department body cam footage of a police interaction with a Black teen in his home on May 15, 2021 in Burlington, Vt. (Burlington Police Department/American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont via AP)
ATLANTA (AP) — The mother of a student at the Georgia high school where a teen allegedly killed four people says information indicating staff were warned he was having a crisis shows the shooting could have been prevented.
“The school failed them, that they could have prevented these deaths and they didn’t,” Rabecca Sayarath said Sunday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I truly, truly feel that way.”
Sayarath’s daughter, Lyela, told reporters on Wednesday, the day of the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that administrators appeared to be looking for Colt Gray, the 14-year-old who has been charged with four counts of murder, before the gunfire began.
Others, though, are declining to blame school or law enforcement officials.
"I’m not going to referee or second-guess what happened with the authorities the other night," U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, said on CNN's “State of the Union" on Sunday. “I applaud our first responders. When others are running away from danger, they run toward the danger in order to do the best they can.”
Officials say Gray shot and killed students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Eight other students and a teacher were injured — seven of them shot — and are expected to recover.
Annie Brown told The Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray’s mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and warned staff of an “extreme emergency” before the killings. Brown said Marcee Gray urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him.
Brown provided screen shots of the text exchange to the newspaper, which also reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school at 9:50 a.m. Warrants for Gray's arrest say the shooting started at 10:20 a.m.
Brown confirmed the reporting to The Associated Press on Saturday in text messages but declined to provide further comment.
Marcee Gray expressed remorse for the shootings Saturday to The Washington Post and The New York Post.
“I am so, so sorry and can not fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” Gray told The Washington Post in a text.
“It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” Gray told The New York Post outside her father’s home in Fitzgerald, Georgia, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.
Charles Polhamus, the boy's grandfather, has told multiple news outlets that Marcee Gray got a text from her son on Wednesday saying he was sorry. Polhamus told CNN that Marcee Gray drove to Winder, more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Fitzgerald, immediately after the shooting.
The Washington Post also reported that texts show relatives contacted the school about the boy's mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative he was having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.” The newspaper reported that the teen's grandmother, Deborah Polhamus, met with a school counselor to request help.
The boy "starts with the therapist tomorrow,” Polhamus wrote in a text to Brown after that meeting.
Investigators haven't said what they believe might have motivated Gray or whether they believe he targeted particular victims.
Authorities have said Gray's father, Colin Gray, gave him access to the semiautomatic AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting. It's not clear how Gray brought the gun to campus or what he did with it in the two hours between school starting at 8:15 a.m. and when shots first rang out.
Colin Gray became the first parent of a school shooting suspect to be charged in Georgia, District Attorney Brad Smith said Friday. He’s accused of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children for providing his son with the rifle.
Colin Gray is jailed in Barrow County after declining to seek bail in a brief court hearing Friday in Winder. Colt Gray is being held in a juvenile detention center after declining to seek bail. Neither has been indicted or entered a plea.
Lyela Sayarath said Wednesday that Colt Gray had left her algebra classroom and that she believed he was skipping class.
In the minutes before the shooting, a female administrator came to her class looking for a student with the same last name and almost identical first name as Gray, she said. That other student was in the bathroom, but the administrator demanded to see his bag. That student returned with his bag moments later, Sayarath said, and told her that administrators had concluded he wasn't the student they were looking for.
Someone also called the teacher on the intercom, apparently asking about Gray, Sayarath said. She said as the intercom buzzed a second time, the teacher responded, “Oh he's here,” seeing Gray outside the classroom door.
When students went to open the door, which automatically locks from the inside when closed, Sayarath said they backed away. She said she saw Colt Gray turn away through the window of the door and then she said she heard gunshots — “10 or 15 of them at once, back-to-back.”
Rabecca Sayarath, Lyela’s mother, has said she believed the school erred by sending an unarmed administrator to look for Colt Gray instead of one of Apalachee High's armed school resource officers.
When she questioned Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith about her daughter’s account at a Wednesday night news conference, Smith cautioned, “With all due respect, ma’am, I think your information is incorrect.”
It's unclear if Barrow County school authorities knew before the shooting that Colt and Colin Gray previously had been interviewed by a sheriff's deputy in neighboring Jackson County in May 2023 after a report of an online threat to shoot up a middle school that Colt Gray, then 13, attended.
Colt Gray told the deputy that “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” according to a report filed by investigators. No action was taken because of inconsistent information about the social media account used to make the threats.
Colin Gray told the investigator back then that Colt had access to unloaded guns in the house but knew “how to use them and not use them.” He also said his son had struggled since he and his wife separated and that Colt was picked on in school.
Nicole Valles, a spokesperson for the Barrow County school district, declined to comment Sunday in response to emailed questions seeking more details about what may have happened before the shooting.
“Because this is an active investigation and now court proceedings have begun, we are not commenting on specific details,” Valles wrote, referring questions to the district attorney.
Smith didn't immediately respond to emails Sunday with similar questions, while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred requests for comment to the district attorney.
Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray, 14, sits in the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Colt Gray sits in the Barrow County courthouse during his first appearance for the Wednesday shooting at Apalachee High School, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool)
Mark Gorman holds a candle during a candlelight vigil for the slain students and teachers at Apalachee High School, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
People embrace at a makeshift memorial after a shooting Wednesday at Apalachee High School, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A memorial is seen at Apalachee High School after the Wednesday school shooting, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
