Sen. Brian Collamore opened last Thursday’s public safety forum at Rutland’s Paramount Theatre with a sobering fact: There were eight homicides in Vermont last month — including one in nearby Castleton.
“The current situation is not one which bodes well for the public to feel safe,” the Rutland County Republican said.
We agree. In Rutland City, and throughout the Green Mountain State, things are feeling less safe and people are demanding action.
We commend Rutland Mayor Mike Doenges, who convened the forum — that also included members of local law enforcement, several county legislators, Department of Corrections leadership, the Rutland County state’s attorney — attempting to address the city’s crime and safety issues head on. Rutland’s hardships have long been fodder for those around the state who like to look down their noses at Vermont’s scrappy “second city.” And while Rutland’s struggles may be more pronounced, no corner of the state is immune from the issues discussed last Thursday.
Early in the evening Doenges presented some current statistics about crime in the city, noting a rise in retail theft in which 75% of offenders were known substance abusers and 30% are repeat offenders. Additional city police data featured in a recent VTDigger story shows police reported 711 larcenies last year — more than double what it was in 2019.
Broken down by offense, a third of the larcenies last year were shoplifting, and about a quarter were thefts from motor vehicles. Reports of violent crime, while less common, have also been increasing since 2020. Aggravated assaults jumped from 35 incidents in 2020 to 57 in 2022 — a notable increase but still short of the 70 reported in 2017, according to FBI data.
During the forum, panelists attempted to answer questions about why more isn’t being done to curb crime while adding context and even offering some solutions.
For the city’s part, Doenges and Rutland City Police Chief Brian Kilcullen discussed recruitment efforts to bolster the city’s chronically understaffed police force. Doenges’ proposed budget for next year restores much of the money stripped from the police department in recent years in the form of pay increases and additional positions — a fact that drew applause from the otherwise testy crowd Thursday.
Another local solution proposed was the creation of neighborhood watches throughout the city, where residents could be actively engaged in keeping the streets safe by being eyes and ears for police. We submit that an official, organized neighborhood watch initiative would be a safe way to successfully channel similar unofficial efforts currently happening in Rutland.
Citing rhetoric he’s observed on social media, as well as some of the vitriol present in the audience Thursday night, RCPD Cmdr. Matt Prouty, who also serves as executive director of Project VISION, stressed that the preservation of life remains a top priority, and called out those in the community who lack compassion or see violence as a potential solution to the city’s crime problems, stating, “If preservation of life isn’t your primary interest, we don’t want you in public safety.”
Looking outward, Collamore didn’t mince words, placing blame on the Legislature: “We make the laws. If they need to change, they need to change.”
Such changes may include proposed legislation that would allow prosecutors to combine similar misdemeanor offenses committed over a limited period of time into a single felony, opposing another bill that would make it even harder for judges to impose bail, and expediting the process for filling vacant judicial seats to alleviate the backlog in the courts caused by the pandemic.
These are all solid solutions that need to be top priorities for the Legislature when it reconvenes in January. We hope House and Senate leaders in Montpelier are paying attention because this isn’t just a Rutland problem — this is a Vermont problem. Communities can only do so much. Legislative solutions will require support not just from Rutland’s delegation but from lawmakers statewide.
People are frustrated, frightened and fed up. That much was clear from the raucous — at times, disrespectful — audience members Thursday night, who heckled panelists, shouted expletives and bickered with each other throughout the two-hour forum. But as Prouty noted, in pursuing safety and justice, we cannot lose our humanity.
While we don’t disagree with Rep. Tom Burditt, R-West Rutland, another panelist, who suggested that perhaps the pendulum of compassion has swung too far in one direction, we must be careful in our correction of that swing. Accountability in our criminal justice system needs to be balanced with compassion and empathy. We must give second chances to those who earnestly want them and justly punish those who do not. To do that, police and prosecutors need the Legislature to give them the tools they need.
Rutland started a difficult conversation last week. Time will tell who was listening.
