del Pozo Resigns

It's hard to take an inventory of how much psychic energy I've spent ruminating on this direct twitter message from former chief del Pozo and its aftermath in my life, or how much fear it's caused me, but I feel like I've been holding my breath between August 12, 2016 and today.  That was the day I tweeted about his patch, and he wrote back to me within 10 minutes with a message intended to intimidate me out of my opinion or at least my expression of it.

I have not felt safe in the city of my birth since the moment I received it.  I have not felt free to speak my mind.  Maybe today I can start to heal, and Burlington can start to heal.  Miro's legacy will still be tainted, but maybe the taint can fade a bit.  I hope no Burlington Police Officer ever behaves the way Brandon del Pozo did again.

Thank you Charles Winkleman.  Thank you Courtney Lamdin.

I have written on this subject for the past three years, and I have spoken to many of you about it. I have campaigned against the mayor as hard as I could since then because of it, especially as del Pozo repeated the behavior again and again. I spoke to the city council and to Seven Days. At the same time I have tried to explain this to the mayor.  I know I am not expressing myself well enough, and I'm groping for the words to explain why what del Pozo did by bothering people on social media is an abuse of power and so very wrong.

I feel exhausted.  Today is a great day for the rule of law and for justice but it's not a day for celebration.  It's a day for picking up the pieces, and getting back to regular order.

I want to get back to what I was talking about on August 12, 2016 before I was interrupted by the former chief demanding that I answer to him for  what I choose to say.

The new police patch del Pozo gave us, currently worn by Burlington's finest, is ugly.  It's dark, foreboding, and overly simplistic.  It seems designed to create fear, and that isn't nice.  Unlike the old bright and colorful patch we had for forty years, which depicts the Adirondacks from the view of a Burlingtonian, the new patch depicts the Green Mountains, from the view of a New Yorker.  I don't like it.  I said it belongs on a robot soldier in a future dystopian police state, and del Pozo responded quickly and viscerally.  That's not 21st century policing.

The police have the only legitimate use of force.  He was the chief of him.  He's a guy I didn't know and never met.  I didn't have a good feeling about him from what I had heard.  His message scared me.  There is no possible way he didn't know it would and intend it to. There isn't an equivalency between us when we have a disagreement.  There shouldn't be a disagreement.  There shouldn't be an interaction.  This is America.  I'm allowed to say what I want.

I've had the facebook post hidden all this time too.  I guess I can put that back now, but for friends only.  Del Pozo taught me to change my privacy settings.

 

Later that morning on facebook, after he commented on my post, and kept commenting even after I asked him to stop.  Then he sent me a friend request and I wrote this.