This story was updated at 5:05 p.m.
BENNINGTON — An investigator with the Vermont Human Rights Commission has determined that the Bennington Police Department discriminated against Kiah Morris on the basis of her race, violating her human rights and the rights of her family.
A 54-page preliminary report, obtained by VTDigger, summarizes the commission’s investigation, which began in February 2019. It sheds new light on a story many in Vermont, and across the country, now know.
Starting in 2016, Morris faced an onslaught of harassment from white supremacist Max Misch and others connected to him. Threats, online trolling and break-ins ultimately prompted her departure, despite popularity, from her position as a state representative. She was the only Black woman serving in the Vermont Statehouse at the time.
Morris and her husband, James Lawton, have since relocated to Chittenden County, and have alleged that Bennington police didn’t do enough to protect their family. The Human Rights Commission’s report corroborates that claim.
The report includes a scathing review of the department’s actions, concluding that Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette downplayed threats to Morris’ and Lawton’s safety and failed to disclose information that could have helped protect them.
Nelson Campbell, supervising attorney with the commission, conducted the investigation, which is based on a slew of documents and email exchanges, as well as 17 interviews with police officers, town officials, Morris, Lawton and witnesses. It was completed and signed by Campbell and Bor Yang, the executive director of the Commission, on March 3.
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Morris spoke about her experience in Bennington, and other members of racial justice organizations contributed statements about the implications of the investigation, and Morris’ story, on the state.
“When I moved to Vermont, I never imagined the enormity of my life, my work and story in this state. It is awesome and terrifying at the same time,” she said.
Morris said she adored the town until she found “that town leadership engaged in a whisper campaign that placed the town’s precarious economic future at my feet, [and] business owners that I was once friendly with became prejudicial. Some feared ostracization if they were to show support for me in any way.”
She said her family, including her 10-year-old son, still suffers and experiences fear.
“My employer had to hire an international security expert to create plans for our staff as they immediately became vulnerable targets for their association with me after my hire,” she said.
Morris read a statement on behalf of Lawton, who she said was absent due to a medical emergency.
“The hate came on a national level from dangerous white supremacist groups who are guided to Kiah and our family by a self-avowed Bennington white supremacist who also garnered local support from well-known bad actors in Bennington that shared his hate and used it for their own self promotion,” she read. “The potential harm to our family was compounded by weak, ineffective, and poor investigations at both a state and local level that stripped our family of trusts in a system that is supposed to protect the citizens of the state.”
Mia Schultz, current president of the Rutland Area NAACP, said the response of local and state officials sent a message to the community.
“The message was, even the highest ranking most visible Black woman in our community is not safe,” she said, “and will not be protected by the system, even when she’s in service to our community and our state.”
Tabitha Moore, who served as president of the Rutland Area NAACP before she moved from the area after facing harassment, has worked on Morris’ case since the beginning. She said obvious bad actors like Misch were problematic, but pointed further to others who “created harm” by failing to protect Morris and her family. Namely, she said actions and investigations by Doucette and Attorney General TJ Donovan did not go far enough.
“This investigation has provided a small dose of justice,” Moore said.
“It is important for everyone in the room to realize that this case represents the story of so many Vermonters of color,” said Steffen Gillom, president of the Windham County NAACP.
“In many regards, the tagline of the NAACP is that we are done dying,” Gillom said. “Well, I am here to tell you that we are done suffering, too.”
Typically, after the Human Rights Commission has conducted an investigation, commissioners undertake an additional process to review it, then vote on whether to accept the recommendation — in this case, that the Bennington Police Department discriminated against Morris and her family.
On this matter, that process won’t move forward. Morris’ family and the town have entered into a settlement agreement, approved by the Bennington Selectboard in late April. The town will pay Morris’ family $137,500 and provide free space to Vermont Legal Aid, which offers pro-bono legal services to those in need.
The agreement also requires Selectboard members to issue a public apology, which they read aloud at a recent meeting.
“No one in Bennington should feel unsafe or unprotected,” Jeannie Jenkins, selectboard chair, read on behalf of the board. “We have listened to Kiah Morris, James Lawton and their family in mediation. It is clear that Kiah, James and their family felt unsafe and unprotected by the town of Bennington. We have to do better by all persons who live in, work in or travel through the Town of Bennington irrespective of color, race, religion and other categories as protected by the law.
“The Town of Bennington apologizes to Kiah Morris, James Lawton and their family for the harms and trauma they encountered while residing in Bennington, and we fully acknowledge this reality. We pledge to learn, to do better and to protect all of our citizens.”
Finally, the town must continue to involve the public in conversation about citizen oversight of the police department.
In turn, Morris and her family must withdraw their complaint from the Human Rights Commission, which will prevent the organization’s commissioners from reaching a final determination about whether discrimination occurred.
The settlement will be finalized when all of the terms of the agreement are met.
“I also want the public to know that any financial awards that we will receive come from the liability insurance policy of the town, and not tax dollars. The direct financial costs of the town are actually minimal,” Morris said.
Multiple leaders on Tuesday’s call said personnel changes in the police department and within the town — which social justice leaders have long been calling for — are necessary for forward movement.
“No changes in staffing or penalties for the town manager or the chief of police have emerged from this experience, which my family feels is necessary to begin on a meaningful path towards real change in Bennington,” Morris said.
Schultz, who helped author a petition that called for Hurd and Doucette to step down, said she’s looking for accountability.
“Accountability has never been had,” Schultz said. “The message is that the police department, the town of Bennington and the system will not be held accountable, will not assume ownership of their own actions.”
Robert Appel, an attorney who has represented Morris’ family, said the law “is an adept way to resolve disputes, but it’s often not humane. I think the outcome of this complaint demonstrates that.”
“I echo Kiah’s call for change in personnel and leadership,” Appel said.
Moore called out Doucette and Donovan for how they handled investigations.
“There are many people who have created harm in this case,” Moore said, “from the obvious Max Misch to those that Kiah and her family should have been able to turn to and rely on for protection, including Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette, and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, headed by TJ Donovan.”
Moore termed Donovan’s investigation into the racial harassment of Morris and her family as “half-hearted,” relying heavily on “tainted” information provided by the Bennington Police Department.
Donovan did not bring any criminal charges from his investigation into the racial harassment of Morris by Misch and others, concluding after his probe that the “broad” protections of the First Amendment prevented him from doing so.
“The entire situation,” Moore said Tuesday, “has only served to highlight the numerous flaws and systemic barriers that plague Vermont and sends a loud and clear message to Black Vermonters that our lives are worth less than the salaries of those we entrust with our care.”
The attorney general did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but Donovan has defended his investigation in past interviews.
“It was what we do in a typical case,” Donovan has said, “collect the police paperwork, collect the file, and review and make a determination whether probable cause existed for any crime.”
He has said that since several of the incidents took place a couple of years earlier that going back and doing forensic work would have been impractical.
The town’s response
In a response, Michael Leddy, attorney representing the town of Bennington, found that there are “no reasonable grounds to believe the Bennington Police Department violated the VFHPAA,” an acronym for the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act.
While acknowledging that Morris has been the target of “abhorrent racist online harassment” and that the town finds the behavior of Misch “vile and disgusting,” it takes issue with the “target” of the report, which was the town and the police department.
“While Respondent sympathizes with Complainants and the fact that they have been subjected to vile, racist online attacks, it must defend itself from Complainants’ allegation that it was the BPD that endangered Complainants’ family,” the response reads.
The response stipulates that the police department investigated ding-dong-ditch incidents, in which juveniles repeatedly knocked on Morris’ family’s door in the middle of the night, as bias-related incidents. The HRC’s report suggested otherwise. It says the BPD looked “extensively” for evidence of racial discrimination, “but found none,” and points to the fact that the juvenilles first targetted Morris’ neighbor, then moved on to Morris’ house when the neighbor was not home.
The response notes that the testimony of officer Amanda Knox, who investigated the ding-dong-ditch incident, was not included in the HRC report, which the response says is “contrary to law.” It also suggests that the investigator should have interviewed Kevin Hoyt, who the report named as another harasser of Morris, about his possible connections to the incident.
Leddy also states in his response that, when Morris and Lawton claim the department did not act quickly enough in investigating a death threat on Lawton’s computer, that the department was held up because they did not have passwords to enter the devices. The town asserts those officers were stalled by several days because those passwords were missing, and Morris and Lawton didn’t immediately turn them over.
The response claims that some of Morris’ comments to the media have been unfair, and that the department has acted quickly and thoroughly when investigating claims.
Doucette referred VTDigger to Hurd for comment, and Hurd referred VTDigger to the town’s official response.
Jeannie Jenkins, chair of the town selectboard, told VTDigger Tuesday that she disagrees with the report’s conclusion that the police department discriminated against Morris and Lawton.
“There is a limit to what the legal system can do,” she said. “For many of us, what we see is that there is an opportunity for community learning, community growth, and maybe braver responses when horrific incidents like these happen.”
Jenkins said asking Doucette or Hurd to step down is “not something that the town would consider,” but said the town is working to build trust with the community.
She pointed to ongoing work to reform the department, including the forthcoming creation of a citizen’s oversight board, and said she hopes that community members will remain engaged with the changes that the town is working to implement.
“I think that building safety and a sense of equity in a community is not something that happens overnight,” she said.
A comparable case
Campbell ultimately found that Morris and Lawton “were denied the benefits, privileges [and] services of the Bennington Police Department while similarly situated persons outside the protected class were not.”
She used another comparable case, called a “comparator,” to illustrate that determination. The cases are not identical, she underscores, but contain similar elements. In both, police responded to concerns from Bennington residents about people who could pose a threat to the community.
One difference is important: In the comparator case, the Bennington residents who brought concerns to police were white.
In 2012, Bennington residents expressed concern about Steven Davis, then a teacher at Mount Anthony High School. Davis has been “acting odd,” and had been seen placing an AR-15 into his car.
Police responded and spoke to Davis’ wife and children, who advised they were going through a difficult time. That night, Davis’ wife called back to say she was afraid of her husband. Police advised her to seek a protection order, and she left her home with her children.
“Far less than 24 hours after the first call by the neighbor, police served the order on Davis and confiscated a Bushmaster AR-15 .223 rifle in a hard case with two fully loaded 30 round magazines,” the report says. It notes that Davis’ weapons were similar to Misch’s.
Officer Roscoe Harrington wrote in a report about Davis’ expressed discontent with school officials. He then reviewed a video posted by Davis with Detective Larry Cole, who would later interview Misch’s ex-wife, Lisa Shapiro.
“Having read the three reports written by officers about their interactions with Davis, what I heard and saw on this video was concerning,” Cole wrote. “Depending on an individual’s interpretation of the words spoken by Davis, one could find the video threatening.”
In Morris’ case, Harrington and Cole both spoke with Shapiro about her concerns that Misch might pose a threat to the community.
Doucette convinced Davis to come to the police station, and after a conversation, Cole drove him to the emergency room for an evaluation.
Campbell used the case as an example of policing gone right: Davis was considered a potential danger and in declining mental health, so within six hours of their first visit, they confiscated his weapons and ensured he had immediate access to mental health care. Police patrolled the area even when Davis was in the hospital, and served an extended restraining order on him to ensure the safety of his family.
Both Misch and Davis were brought to police attention by people concerned about their mental health “and their possible connections to a firearm that could unload 30 rounds of ammunition at a time without having to reload,” the report says.
But after an interview with Shapiro, who alerted police to the potential danger Misch posed to Morris, police declined to protect Morris and Lawton in the same way.
“This investigation suspects that had Doucette divulged the information obtained in the interview with Shapiro to Morris and Lawton, both Morris and Lawton, individually and on behalf of J.L., could have obtained protective orders,” the report reads. “Those orders would have then likely resulted in the confiscation of all of Misch’s firearms, ammunition, and magazines, as happened in the Davis case.”
The town’s response, written by Leddy, states that the cases are entirely different, and rejects the notion that Davis’ case is an adequate comparator.
“There are no facts regarding escalation of behavior of Mr. Misch or threats to Complainants following this interview,” the response says. “This is in direct contrast with the Davis case.”
The response also notes that the Davis case occurred soon after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, “when the entire country was still in shock and on edge regarding school violence.”
Jenkins said the situations were not the same.
“Steve’s situation was entirely different,” she said. “It was a mental health crisis. It involved threats to an entire school system, it involved threats to central office. It was a very, very, very different case with a very different trajectory. And so the response was different.”
When the clock strikes 12, ‘he shoots people’
After Morris stepped away from her position as a legislator, Attorney General TJ Donovan began investigating the situation. On Oct. 15, 2018, Assistant Attorney General Ultan Doyle asked Doucette to forward everything he had on Morris’ and Lawton’s case.
The attorney general’s investigation continued through January, and “involved a fair amount of correspondence with Doucette, seeking clarifications and further information regarding alleged threats to the Complainants,” the report says.
The same day Doyle initiated contact with Doucette, Misch posted a photo on Instagram of his new AR-15. The post prompted a call to police from a therapist who was treating Shapiro, Misch’s ex-wife, who was concerned about Morris’ safety. Harrington took the call, then contacted Shapiro, who said Misch’s guns were loaded and not secured, and that he had purchased the new rifle to “one up on Lawton.”
Shapiro agreed to come into the Bennington Police Department the following day, Oct. 17, where Doucette and Detective Larry Cole interviewed her for more than an hour.
Doucette did not send the Attorney General’s office the information from the interview until February — four months later — “despite the fact this interview was relevant to the second phase of its investigation, which Doucette had been informed of only two days earlier, on October 15, 2018,” the report says.
Shapiro told Doucette and Cole that she had been a nurse for 32 years, and that she knew Misch “really well.”
Misch had been arrested for strangling Shapiro two years earlier. In the interview, she described the moment it happened, which took place after the two had been looking for apartments together.
A section of the unedited transcript from the report describes Misch pushing Shapiro by the neck down the bathroom door. Shapiro tells police she couldn’t “believe it’s going to end like this.”
“I saw his face and he had no — he had that blank stare and he was just like like … he wasn’t, he was slowly like tighter and tighter,” an unedited version of the transcript reads.
At the time, Shapiro called police. She told Doucette in the interview that when she and Misch would “revisit” the incident, Misch would blame her for calling them, and would say, “If I wanted to kill you, you know I would’ve.”
“[He was like] you called the police and I got arrested and I said Max you strangled me he doesn’t see the wrong just doesn’t see it …” the transcript reads.
The report summarizes the other important points from the interview:
- Misch recently purchased what Shapiro called an AK-47, and she noted twice that Misch was frustrated that the magazines he purchased did not fit the gun.
- Cole asked Shapiro why she was concerned about Morris. “She responded, ‘because she’s black [sic], you kidding.’” He asked her to elaborate, and she said, “he’s a neo Nazi, a white supremacist, 100%.”
- Asked whether he’s threatened anyone, Shapiro said, “I think Max is smart and he knows not to.”
- After mass shootings, Misch always sides with the shooter, she said. “Columbine, Boston Marathon, he always takes the side of the shooter. He’ll always say it’s a conspiracy, the government set it up to scare the public, he doesn’t have a conscience.’”
- Shapiro said Misch has never expressed wanting to kill Morris. When asked about Lawton, she said, “If he has to defend himself, he would, I believe he would, 100%, like if they came on his property, but he never said he would.”
- Shapiro said Misch said he would like to see Lawton ‘die on the table’ referring to Lawton’s heart surgery.
- Cole asked Shapiro what she thought of people calling Misch a “ticking time bomb.” She said, “I would say that’s true.” He asked what happens when the clock strikes 12, to which she answered, “he shoots people.” She added, “I think he’s almost preparing for that.”
- Doucette asked Shapiro what she thought of getting Misch and Morris “together in a room to try to work things out.” Shapiro said Misch would only do that to hurt Morris.
Even when the department sent the attorney general a written report about the interview, it “did not capture the entirety of the interview with Shapiro and the information she provided to him and to Doucette,” the report says.
Mainly, it left out details about Misch’s relationship with Kevin Hoyt, a local gun rights activist who has posted in support of QAnon and advocated for the formation of militias in Vermont, and his partner, Colleen Harrington. Shapiro noted that she thought Hoyt and Harrington were trying to “rile Max up to have another issue with Lawton.”
Two times, Doucette portrayed Lawton as having a “cache” of weapons, which Campbell says in a footnote is “not entirely accurate according to the definition and images associated with caches of weapons.”
Doucette expressed concern for Misch’s safety because Lawton posted a photo of his guns with the caption, “this is how we defend ourselves.”
“Doucette’s demeanor and comments during the interview with Shapiro signaled a dislike and suspicion of Lawton, which conversely risked signaling his support for Misch and Hoyt,” the report reads. “There was also a risk that Shapiro would carry Doucette’s words and his responses, and the information he provided, to Misch, and a chance Misch would repeat them to Hoyt and Harrington.”
On the same day as their interview with Shapiro, Doucette and Cole visited Misch’s home, arriving unannounced. They asked him about his firearms, and whether they needed to be worried about the safety of others, though they did not specifically mention Morris or Lawton.
“Max was very cordial and seemed at ease once we told him he was not in trouble with us,” Cole wrote, later adding, “we did not get a sense he was mentally unstable and he was able to keep direct eye contact with us and he answered any questions we asked of him.”
“After a few minutes we did not see the need to prolong our visit and we left Max’ s apartment. This ends my involvement with Lisa and Max Misch,” Cole wrote.
The report compares officers’ response to Shapiro’s interview and their response to the Davis case.
When Doucette and Cole visited Misch, “they decided that because he answered all their questions … and maintained eye-contact with them while there, that he was mentally stable,” the report says.
“Doucette and his officers clearly saw risk to white family members (and the larger mostly white community) in the Davis case but saw no risk to Morris, Lawton and J.L. in the case of Misch,” the report says.
Asked by Campbell why Doucette had not disclosed the interview sooner, he said the information would have been available to the attorney general through the computer assisted dispatch system. But only the first call from Shapiro’s therapist would have been available, not the interview.
“Purposefully withholding information and failing to fully cooperate with a prosecutorial office is profoundly contrary to one of the central roles of law enforcement and so far outside widely accepted norms that an objective person could find a rational inference of discrimination,” the report says.
The town’s response to the report says that Doucette had no “legal duty” to report the information from Shapiro’s interview to the attorney general or directly to Morris and Lawton.
“It also appears that even if the Misch interview was reported, it would not have changed the Attorney General’s finding of insufficient evidence to bring any charges,” the response states.
Campbell also found that Shapiro mistakenly called Misch’s new gun an “AK-47,” when Misch said in social media posts that it was an AR-15. In the report, Campbell said this indicated that Doucette had not checked his social media, which she found “somewhat puzzling given that Shapiro referred to the fact that Misch enjoyed using it to harass Morris during the interview with Doucette and Cole.”
Campbell described how Doucette comforted the community through Davis’ case — a baker who had planned to work with him on a project, an emotional daycare provider.
“A directed patrol of the school grounds and Davis’s home were performed, all of which is laudatory. In contrast, Doucette and Cole told no one about the Shapiro interview, not even the Attorney General’s Office, which Doucette knew was in the process of investigating threats to the Complainants,” the report says.
‘Dead Dead’
Part of the report explores the depth and length of an investigation into a potential death threat on James Lawton’s computer. Campbell found the investigation was unnecessarily delayed and the investigation did not go far enough.
On July 27, 2018, Lawton powered on his laptop and, below his log-in photo, saw the words “dead dead” instead of his name. Morris contacted Vermont State Police, where a trooper advised Morris to contact Bennington Police, which would contact VSP if they needed help with analysis.
Lawton called Bennington police. Officer Michael Sharshon, knowing his department could not perform a forensic analysis of the computer, called Eric Jollymore, VSP’s computer crimes contact. In an incident report, Sharshon wrote, “it was determined the computers would not be forensically analyzed,” and he told Lawton not to bring the computers to the department.
“However due to the conflicting advice and based on their fear over the message,” Morris and Lawton brought the computers in anyway on July 28, and believed “that the BPD would transport the computers to the VSP for analysis.”
A back-and-forth between Bennington police and VSP prompted a few days’ worth of confusion about whether VSP could analyze the computers, prompting Commander Matthew Raymond from the Internet Crimes Against Children department in the Attorney General’s Office to leave Doucette a voicemail clarifying that his office could, in fact, analyze the computers.
On Aug. 7, Raymond still had not heard from Doucette. In a supplemental narrative, he wrote, “There was an impression that VT-ICAC recommended that no computer exam be conducted. I am writing this report to correct that impression.”
On Aug. 13 or 14, Morris ran into Doucette and discovered he still had the computers. After obtaining passwords, Bennington police turned the computers over to Vermont State Police on Aug. 22, where Jollymore began an investigation the same day.
The investigation wrapped up on Oct. 10, 2018, when a detective working on the case interviewed a former owner of the computer, who said a 10-year-old child had used the screen name “dead dead” when he played online Xbox games. The Xbox and computer were still connected, which prompted the appearance of the name.
Campbell’s further inspection noted that the fiance of the previous computer owner “powered up” the Xbox for the child. That person also had ties to Hoyt and several juveniles who had repeatedly played “ding dong ditch” on Morris’ house in the middle of the night. That, along with the prolonged investigation, “would certainly make it reasonable for Complainants to feel dissatisfied with VSP’s investigation,” the report says.
“The BPD’s inaction again demonstrated a lack of urgency and concern for the safety and well-being — physical and mental — of the Complainants,” it says.
Years of harassment
Misch’s harassment of Morris began in August of 2016, when she supported what is now Act 94, a gun control law that requires background checks on private gun sales and bans high-capacity magazines. Misch was later charged with violating that law.
“While many legislators and the Governor were targeted with angry mail over the law, the animosity towards Morris was overlaid with horrific, frightening and racist invectives, particularly from Misch,” the report reads.
Misch tagged Morris in several tweets, some of which she sent to Chief Doucette. One said, “Sheeit, I be representin dem white muhfugghuz of Bennington, gnome sayin?”
Similar messages from other social media users followed. One user sent Morris a picture of a Black person at a laptop with the caption, “Kiah Morris hard at work destroying White Vermont,” then later sent a picture of Africa with the caption, “This is what a safe space looks like” and the message, “Why are you still in my country Sheboon?” Sheboon, the report states, is a derogatory name for an African American woman.
Another message from Infostormer said, “Go back to Africa, it’s the only place you’ll ever be safe.”
In October of 2016, four consecutive incidents occurred in just over a week. On Oct. 10, at 4:30 a.m., Lawton called police to report that someone entered their house through an unlocked door, stole around 100 neckties located in their basement, and scattered them in a cemetery located across the street.
The report notes that, because of the recent racist posts directed at Morris, the family “rightly saw the home invasion as a threat upon their safety.”
“It’s not clear that the BPD saw this beyond a typical burglary and economic loss,” the report says.
On the same day of the burglary, someone slid racist flyers under the door of the Democratic Headquarters in Bennington, where Morris’ campaign sign was featured prominently. The next day, she told police that a car was sitting in the cemetery across from her house with the lights off. The following day, on Oct. 12, Morris reported that her car had been vandalized, and a Sue Minter campaign sign on her lawn had been “twisted up and discarded.”
A week later, on Oct. 25, Doucette made remarks to the Bennington community at a meeting about bias in law enforcement. While the event was focused on eliminating biases police officers may have against some of the marginalized communities they serve, his comments were focused on bias against police officers. Several times, Doucette said he doesn’t believe officers within the force have implicit biases.
Recent traffic stop data indicates that Bennington police overstop Black drivers relative to their share of the population, and they’re searched at a rate nearly three times greater than white drivers.
Over the next two years, Misch continued to harass and stalk Morris, and other locals joined Misch in taking aim at her. In a post to five local Facebook groups, Hoyt began calling Morris a “racist” and said she had tried to purchase an AR-15 before advocating for Act 94.
“Morris and Lawton have stated that they do not and have never owned an AR-15,” the report states. “According to Lawton, he owns a .22 rifle, a .270 hunting rifle, and two handguns.”
Hoyt questioned whether the invasion of Morris’ home had taken place in an August 2018 Facebook post, and Hoyt called police several days later to report that Lawton had threatened him. Bennington police told Hoyt to apply for a stalking order, which was denied in court “due to a lack of evidence,” the report says. A subsequent appeal was also rejected after a full hearing.
Joey Kulkin, who ran a Facebook site called Vermont Legislative News, aligned himself with Hoyt, and attacked Morris for portraying Bennington as racist, writing that she made Bennington look like ‘rural Alabama,’ the report says.
Kulkin, who often asked Doucette for an inside “scoop,” emailed the chief to ask him what he thought the attorney general meant when he commented on VPR that there had been a “breakdown in Bennington.”
“Feel free to use backchannels to chat,” Kulkin wrote to the chief. “You know where to find me.”
A footnote in the report says Doucette “downplayed the relationship with Kulkin, but the fact remains that Kulkin’s emails prompted Doucette to send negative information about the Complainants to the Attorney General during its investigation, and Kulkin benefitted from a significant leak of the Attorney General’s findings prior to the January 2019 press conference.”
Morris’ family also faced vandalism to their property and car, pranks repeatedly played on their home by local teens.
From Sept. 19-24, 2018, teenagers appeared near Morris’ and Lawton’s home. One night, they knocked on their door and ran away. Officer Michael Sharshon responded and told them to leave the area.
“Lawton told Officer Sharshon that this had happened before and that they were at their ‘wit’s end’ and that they would likely stay in a motel that night,” the report reads. “Officer Sharshon told Lawton that he did not think this was necessary and that it appeared to be just a juvenile prank.”
When the same incident happened with a neighbor and the teens confessed to the behavior, they were issued “No Trespass” orders. They claimed not to know who lived in the houses.
Doucette, quoted in a VTDigger story about the incident that was cited in the report, said “I’m confident in saying that no one was singled out in this matter.” But HRC’s report suggests the incident could have been racially motivated.
“This investigation has a Facebook ‘screen shot’ of one of the juveniles asking Kevin Hoyt to text him after Hoyt joined in a group “rant” on Facebook about Morris, Lawton and the BPD’s decision to reissue the orders in February of 2020,” the report says.
“The BPD did not investigate the ‘ding, dong, ditch’ incidents as bias related incidents, but given the connection of the juveniles and/or their parents to Hoyt in 2020, it is not inconceivable that they could have been connected in September and October of 2018, but the issue was not investigated,” it reads.
On Aug. 22, in an Instagram post, Misch celebrated the murder of Mollie Tibbets, a sophomore in college, by an undocumented immigrant in Iowa.
Misch posted a fake photo of Ms. Tibbetts wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Say No to White Boys’ holding up a sign that said the same thing. Misch wrote: “Such exquisite irony.” Another user wrote, “You reap what you sow. And she got what she deserved.” Misch responded, “I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment.”
Two days later, on Aug. 24, 2018, Morris announced she was no longer running for reelection. Lawton and Morris were critical of Bennington Police in media stories, which “began to agonize” Doucette, the report says. Misch celebrated her decision on social media.
On Aug. 27, Attorney General TJ Donovan announced that he’d opened a case that would question whether anyone could be charged for harassing Morris and Lawton.
The report notes that the result of that investigation, a 10-page report, did not include Hoyt. It also did not mention that “Chief Doucette sent Doyle information from Kevin Hoyt and Kulkin that was meant to undermine Morris and Lawton.”
“Had Doucette informed the Attorney General’s Office of Lisa Shapiro’s interview and his and Cole’s visit with Misch, the Attorney General would have been on notice that Hoyt and Misch were spending time together — according to Shapiro — and at least explored the possibility of a connection between Misch, Hoyt and the juveniles in the ‘ding, dong, ditch’ incidents, or conducted further investigation into the matter to determine if they were bias-related incidents,” the HRC report says.
A scathing review
The final pages of the report unleash strong criticisms of the Bennington Police Department, and it’s not the first report to do that.
The HRC report highlighted common themes in how police handled the Morris and Lawton complaints to conclusions reached in a blistering report conducted into the police department last year by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
“Doucette has a long history of denying the existence of bias in his force,” the HRC report stated. “The IACP investigation found a deficit of trust in the BPD by some members of the community.”
That IACP report — prompted by Donovan’s knowledge that Doucette kept Shapiro’s interview from him — found the department displayed a “warrior mentality” which helped fuel mistrust in the community, particularly among marginalized communities.
The report also discussed the case of a Black New York man’s drug arrest during a Bennington Police traffic stop thrown out by the Vermont Supreme Court over claims of racial bias. The Vermont Supreme Court also vacated the conviction of Henry Clinton-Aimable in 2018 after the court said that Bennington Police stopped Clinton-Aimable, a Black man, without sufficient probable cause. And a University of Vermont’s researcher’s report cited Black drivers more likely to be pulled over than white drivers in Bennington.
In addition, that IACP report stated that the community had concerns whether the police department under its current leadership could repair the relationships that it had broken.
“This would be a devastating statement to read for the person in charge, but after this investigation, the concern seems a valid one,” the HRC report stated.
“It is difficult to trust a police department,” the HRC report stated, “led by someone who sees no wrong in his department’s approach to policing, despite a rebuke from the Vermont Supreme Court, a federal judge, and a University of Vermont statistical study that revealed that biased policing was occurring and that there was a non-compliance with the gathering of statistics, which is of course relevant to one of Morris’s claims.”
Both Doucette and Town Manager Stuart Hurd have rebuffed calls by some in the community that they resign from their positions.
Doucette had worked for the department for more than 30 years, while Hurd had worked for the town for more than 45 years.
The HRC report also talked about how the actions, or the lack thereof, of the Bennington Police Department in the Morris and Lawton cases affected the family.
“Few persons reading this report have or will ever have any idea what it would be like to live through the events that the Complainants experienced,” the report stated. “Fear creates vigilance and vigilance does not relieve that fear — it compounds and amplifies it.”
The HRC report ended by quoting from a VTDigger article on the situation in Bennington.
“In a March 2020 story about these events, Senator Dick Sears was quoted as saying of Morris: ‘I don’t know that we understood enough about what she was going through,’’ the report stated. “This investigation agrees with that assessment” as it reached its findings.
At the press conference Tuesday, Morris said, “We have yet to experience the comfort that comes from healing.”
