Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: We are live.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Alright. Welcome to the house judiciary committee this Wednesday morning, February eighteenth, and

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: we're continuing testimony on s two zero eight. And we're gonna start with commander Matthew Raymond.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: If you can join us, thank you for being here.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You can identify yourself for the record and proceed.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: My name is Matt Raymond. I'm the Vermont Office of Attorney General. I found something here. Sorry. I'm the commander of the Internet Crime Children Task Force. And our mission is to prevent the victimization of children by people who use technology. Our cases are about sexual exploitation of children. And, that's, the angle that I'm testifying to about this bill today. I testified at the senate judiciary, and they had made some changes. My as it's currently drafted right now, my big problem is with the identification requirements because there's there's no exception to that. So right now, it just says a long torso. An officer shall be clearly identified by the officer's name or the officer's unique radio or badge number visibly displayed on the officer's person and the officer's agency visibly displayed on the officer's person. May note that down below where it actually allows either people with the broad drug task force or people with doing active undercover investigations related to child sexual exploitation, which is what I'd asked for in the senate. It still doesn't exempt the identification requirements. So you can wear a disguise, but you better have your badge and, say that you're from the attorney general's office on it. Gotcha. Which doesn't make a lot of sense. And also, just doing investigations, especially in a specialized unit like ours, there's many times where you absolutely do not want to be identified as a law enforcement when you're conducting the investigation. The last thing we want to do if we're doing a child sexual abuse material, formerly known as child pornography investigation, is we don't want those electronics at the bottom of Lake Champlain by the time we get to the house. So if we're tracking down an IP address to a residence and we're going to do surveillance on that residence, it depends on where it is and how you're gonna be doing it. If I'm outside somewhere, I I can't be sitting there with my name and agency information because those electronics are not gonna be in that house. It doesn't take long to Google from office of attorney general and see what we do. So as written, right now, this would make children in Vermont less safe than they are right now. We we it would definitely hurt our investigation. It's tremendous. Just to be clear, I'm gonna tell you if you so you you would need the essentially the same exception that they put in related to masking for the identification. Yeah. And and we're not like, we we don't wear masks. So the only reason that the the Escalade's part is because I don't wanna explain exactly how and create a YouTube record on how not to get tough doing this stuff. But if we do undercover stuff, sometimes it's in person, sometimes it's over the Internet, but that's why to disguise your identity if needed. But the not wearing identification when we're when we don't wanna be identified as law enforcement, conducting an investigation is usually important. Right. Excellent.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Double humorous. Not it's not funny, but it's you know what I mean, I think.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: And and not that it's your purview, and

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: maybe there's somebody else here that's gonna talk about it. But is it for law enforcement officers doing work for the Vermont Drug Task Force, would they have the same issue with the way

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: this is? So, obviously, that's not that's not my my area of expertise but I mean, one problem with that is not everybody that does undercover drug work in Vermont is affiliated with the Vermont Drug Test. So you're leaving out a chunk of people. And I don't know if working with or in conjunction with, like, how that they would be better off to speak about that. But it does leave out a chunk of not everybody works you know for the blood drug test work that does drug investigations in the state, so you're leaving out a chunk.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Okay, yep. So I guess in general I'm just I'm gonna assume the way this language is here that they would still have to wear.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yeah. Well, the way I read it, unless I'm missing something, which I definitely could be. Regardless of the Yeah. Yeah. The there's no on this this part just accepts allows you to wear a disguise. But the first part, there's no exception to the first part, but I really didn't wear a right thing. So then then they would be in violation of Us statutes for not wearing their ID and their agency information. Thank you.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Any questions for considering?

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Go ahead, Ken. Just along your investigations, I mean, have your division that you're in charge of, or Right. But you also have, in an investigation, you have all the other divisions or a lot of other divisions that you're coinciding with that are gonna have different rules to follow too, correct? Some might wear masks and some may not want to wear a

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: mask or whatever like that. Doesn't this really complicate it? Like I said, for the mask part, we're not wearing masks. I mean, the only time that I've worn a mask in thirty two years in law enforcement is during COVID.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I I shouldn't have said I

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: should I should say, and and extreme weather kind of like when I was on the interstate at accident scenes, you can wear it for anything in weather, but not to the sky's concerned. But it's the identification part that's the problem. Because, I mean, if you're thinking about it from a uniformed personnel aspect, I have no problem with it. Right? Like, you should know where the person's from, who they are,

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: be able to identify But

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: when you're doing an investigation, there's certain times where you don't want people to know

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: that you're.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: If I'm trying to figure out who lives in the house and I don't want it going back to them, especially in a small state like Vermont, where everybody knows everybody, it doesn't take long for

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: it to get back to the person.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: And then they destroy the evidence, and then that just puts kids in danger. So I mean, many, many times we've gone and found that they were abusing either their own kids, kids with a familial connection or neighbor's kids, which we would never would have found out and rescued those kids and got them services and got them a better outcome in life if we hadn't been able to go and examine the devices. So this would create a huge barrier. Do we want to talk to a landlord, not say

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: that we're the police just

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: to figure out who's living there?

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Then we wouldn't be able to do

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: that because we'd have to be wearing an ID all the time. There's just a, I could throw out so many examples of times where you really don't wanna be identified as a police officer. And, it's conducting an investigation

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: in a sound manner. We we might need all those reasons. Thank you.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Thank you, chair. First, I just wanna say thank you for your service in the state of Vermont and helping one of our most vulnerable populations. I know it's not easy work. One of the at the opening of your testimony, you talked about the safety of children in Vermont being impacted by this legislation that's written. I was curious about your thoughts about the safety of officers and whether this bill, you know, could potentially jeopardize an officer's safety as well.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: I really haven't thought about it from that perspective, but all my sole focus is to make sure that our investigations get to continue if not not have issues. So they probably speak intelligently about I

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: know. Otherwise, I just haven't

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: put a

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: lot of thought into that. I'm more of Sure. You know, really focused on being able to continue to rescue kids.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Yeah. No. And I I totally appreciate that. And so the other question I have is regarding the oversight with the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. And, you know, a term that we came up with yesterday is kind of this double jeopardy component of the bill where you have oversight with the Vermont criminal justice council that they could impute. I think it was I mean, representative Oliver can correct me, but a a tier b violation, think is what the term we used yesterday. But also you have these financial penalties of $1,000 and $2,500 and there's no cap or ceiling. And some of the other legislation that has come before this committee, we've looked at these fines and typically cannot be charged more than, say, 10,000 in an instance. Here, the sky's the limit. I think, God forbid, if we ever had an instance where our officers are on the front lines, an instance like maybe Minnesota that we just saw, and you're out in the freezing cold, you have dozens of officers responding to the exact same instance. If they are wearing masks for their own safety or whatever it might be, you could have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of fines being incurred in one instance. So I'm curious about your thoughts about this this dual oversight double jeopardy component between Vermont Criminal Justice Council oversight and then also the financial penalties?

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Right. Well, I think what you'll find is whatever gets passed, Vermont law enforcement will comply with what's passed, and you won't have the fines because, I mean, you're not seeing We follow the rule of law.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: If we

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: make the law, we're gonna follow it. I don't think you see a problem with law enforcement

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: in Vermont not following the rule of law.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: No, and I would never suggest that.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yeah. So I don't think you'd see the rapid fines, but but again, like, for the first part of this, the identification part, if that's passed, it will 100% affect investigations. And there'll be kids that don't get rescued, kids that don't get services, kids that have a much terrible train wreck of a life because we couldn't conduct business as usual.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Right. And maybe the commissioner or some of the other witnesses could opine on this too, but there could be an instance that I can imagine where BSP is totally compliant in every single way with the legislation if it were to pass, but maybe federal law enforcement is not. And so does that hit VSP agents against federal, either border border patrol, border enforcement control, or ICE?

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yeah, since they're here all up, basically. Yeah.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: That's just kind of what I'm thinking about as this bill is before us.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Tom Benin? I'm good. Yeah.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Is the ID issue raised in the Senate?

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yes. It was. And so and I'd use the I'd use an example, I believe, of sitting on a park bench watching a residence to see who comes and goes. Because in an Internet investigation, sometimes all you get is an IP address, which leads to where that person accessed the Internet. Then you try then you go and figure out is that Internet secure? Is it password protected? What type of encryption is on? And then who lives at the house? And then who it's not just who lives at the house, who's staying at the house. And so that requires surveillance. So if I was sitting on a park bench watching a house to see who comes and goes, under this bill, I'd have to be wearing everybody have to see who I am, which would be problematic, obviously. It'd be like sitting in a marked unit doing surveillance on a house. You know? It just doesn't make any sense to law enforcement. But, yeah, that's what this bill is telling me I'd have to do. Okay. Do you remember? I did bring that up, and they said that they that that's not wasn't their intention. They didn't want that. They were gonna build an exception in the in for that. But and I don't think it was intentional. I think it was oversight error, but it's the the way I did when it got passed, I don't see that. Okay. They may think that that's active undercover, but I think law enforcement would have a different view of what active undercover is than passive. You know, you have uniformed personnel. You got detectives wearing suits, and then you have plainclothes people too. So if I was sitting there on T shirt and jeans, I'm not affecting any type of arrest or intervening in the public doing surveillance, which is a necessary part of the investigation. Yeah. You shouldn't have to identify yourself that you're doing. Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Knowing that, you know, being completely plainclothes for some extreme reason, you could be called to service to enter another situation in time.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Correct.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Yeah. And that could present a problem as well. So there would have to be some sort of

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: protection for that as well.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yeah. So, know, everybody, we carry identification on us, obviously, as you've had in your your your identification. So you'd have to clearly identify yourself. Something happens right in front of you and you have to get involved, then you have to get involved. But you have to make sure that you do it safe for them, safe for you, safe for the general public by clearly identifying yourself. And that could happen on or off duty, which is another section of this. It doesn't say anything about being on or off duty, I don't know if you have to wear these twenty four seven. Keep your ID in the shower. If I want to go out to lunch, do I still have to wear my ID on? Like, there's I think it's just poorly crafted. I understand what they're trying to get to, but it's gonna have unintended consequences that again, would make kids in state less safe. Angela.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Do you have any recommended language or support?

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: I thought about that, don't. The problem is I understand what what everyone was trying to get to. But the problem is trying to make a laundry list of, like, when you can it's very hard to do. Yeah. So I I don't have a solution for you, but I am pointing out a severe problem. So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That'll be fair.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So from what you're saying, well, I think just the two instances of the pretty narrow, you know, drugs and, you know, sexual exploitation of kids and other duties could certainly be expanded, but from what you're saying, it almost sounds like any surveillance should be covered or should shouldn't have to wear

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Right. And there's other reasons Badges. Tactically in an investigation you wouldn't wanna be if you have a reluctant witness and say the only place that you can find them is at work, you don't really wanna go in announcing to everybody. No. If you have a victim, you don't really wanna go announcing to everybody. It's not fair to the victim. Why do they and then have to go to explain all the coworkers why the police were just there talking to them. Right. Yeah. And it could it could cause a a witness not to come forward because they don't want especially when you're there, you know,

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: you know, you're good. As as a layperson, I mean, goes through my mind. You may be doing surveillance for a car theft ring. Yeah. Again, I say I I know that's not your your specialty, but just the way my mind works. And and maybe I'm gonna assume some of the other witnesses may have some other instances where we may need to change things. So and add to the the two exemption payout. Yeah. It's really hard exemptions.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: We have if we have something that comes back to a business, then there's a lot of employees in there. We don't wanna be walking around with our identification if we're working with management and trying to figure out which employee is the one that's that's abusing kids from their workspace. So there's just so many. It would be impossible to create a laundry list of times when in an investigation, you really don't wanna be identified as law enforcement or you would jeopardize the investigation and again, make kids less safe. I think there's a way to get there certainly unless

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: needed for an investigation, you know, an exception of the investigation. I think we we can get there.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: We'll we'll stop giving it all. Yeah.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I'm just curious. Are you aware of any instances where VSP has an officer has worn a mask to intentionally hide their identity during an arrest? With a nefarious intent. Because that's I really what we're

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: don't think there's a problem with it for a lot long at all

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: with masking.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Our big concern, we never stopped obviously when kids are being abused and we get notified of it. During COVID, we were still out in the field, conducting search warrants. And there was the masking mandate, but our big concern was we don't wanna have masks on when we're knocking on someone's door, six in the morning. Right. So, you know, that that was actually a concern of us. We didn't we didn't always want to wear it. Right? But we wanted to make them safe, make make us safe, and we did comply with the rules.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So no, there's not, like, we're not masking up and staunting people in the correct way. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The other question? Yeah. No.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Not a question, really. It's it's unfortunate that local law enforcement is gonna become, in a sense, collateral damage for something that we're trying to do to stop the Fed from doing something and the hindrance that it's put on a local law for you. It's unfortunate that people say they're gonna have to suffer because of it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright, so thank you very much, Commander Raymond. I really appreciate your testimony and we'll go through the office before I move that you can join us in the Yeah. Absolutely. Commissioner Morrison, welcome back. Good to see you.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Thank you, chair and committee. Thanks for having me. My name is Jennifer Morrison. I'm the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. I spent twenty eight and a half years in municipal policing here in Vermont. And I can tell you that I have spent many, many hours prowling around the city of Burlington without my ID or badge clearly displayed, to cat burglars, to watch for car breaks in parking lots when cars were being broken into, to infiltrate underage drinking parties when I was young. I could tell you a vast array of reasons why it is good for public safety, for law enforcement officers to do their job without being recognized as a law enforcement officer. There is no number of exceptions. We couldn't give you a list that is exhaustive because people come up with new ways to be criminals almost every day. So as Commander Raymond noted, there's two issues here. One is about the issue around wearing identification generally, and then, of course, around the masking, trying to create an exhaustive list. My testimony in the Senate was that the statute should just say what they want. That it is unlawful to wear a mask for the sole purpose of hiding your identity. And that when you're in public facing crowd control, these instances that they're trying to regulate, that you have to be identifiable by a name or radio ID number or badge number, whatever it is that the agency assigns people. Write it to prevent what you are trying to prevent, not this buckshot that is going to be really hard to capture all of the exceptions no matter how hard you try. And I know Lieutenant Colonel LaLonde has many other examples that are not captured in here. And so I completely appreciate the intent behind the legislation. I understand, as Commander Raymond said, I understand where they're trying to get, but this is a really difficult path to get where you want. And it is also a solution in search of a problem in Vermont. I have never, in my experience as a police leader I became a supervisor and led teams 1999. I have never had a complaint of one of my police officers or troopers hiding their identity and doing something without providing identification or justification of what they're doing. So I'm not If I could wave my magic wand, I'd say, whatever you're to do, do it quickly so we can get back on topic to things that actually are going to keep Vermonter safer. So that would be my magic wand moment. I started making a list of all the reasons why you wouldn't want to show your identification, as he mentioned, being in surveillance, which is different than plainclothes operation, which is very different from undercover operations, where you are assuming some other identity other than Jen Morrison's soccer mom, where I am living as someone else for an extended period of time while I infiltrate an outlaw motorcycle group or an established drug group that's got ties back overseas. Undercover work is different from plainclothes work, and it's different from surveillance work. So there's a lot of different ranges of things that would have to be contemplated in order to make this operationally sound. Sun exposure, Sean will talk about, and he and I share, the repeated carvings of the face due to skin cancer. And that's obviously not reflected in here. Talks about wearing a mask for a fire situation, but there's also chemical exposures. There's also decomposing bodies. There's also homes we go into that are so rancid, you could not even begin to imagine and masking would be appropriate. So, again, I think what I what I I wanna pass this over to lieutenant colonel Lone. What I really want to say is that I I get I I get it, and I understand the reason for this piece, for this bill in its current form. It is not there. It's not operationally able to be worked in its current form. And I think the amount of time and bandwidth this is going to take to get it to a place where you could capture all those exceptions, both on when you have to identify yourself openly and publicly, and exceptions for masking, is going to take a lot of time, and even then, it will be imperfect.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Well, we always strive for perfection. Yeah, I

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: hear you. Angela,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Karen, Zach, and then Ian.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Good morning. Good morning. I was just wondering if you're aware of the recent incident in Williston at the ICE facility where a Williston police officer was wearing a mask. Sure. And I'm confident that he or she could be identified. The

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: reality is that this is intended to address presumably federal agents coming in from headquarters or another field place that can't be identified and held accountable for their actions. That's not the case in Williston. That officer can be identified, maybe not in the moment to the people who were present there. If that's think that's part of the goal. Sure. If it's a uniformed police officer going hands on with someone or even face to face in a crowd control civil unrest situation, I agree. They should be identified and they should have a name rocker and they should have either a radio ID number or a badge number, some way to know who that person was. Even absent that, we can figure out who that person is because there's only X number of employees at any one Even in our agency, we could figure out who that person is, and we have vastly more troopers than any of the local police agencies have. So don't like hearing what you're saying that somebody was trying to conceal their identity. I don't officer. A police officer concealing their identity while they're performing their official actions. There are reasons perhaps why they don't. Perhaps their full time job is in undercover drug work and they knew the media was there, and so they don't want their face in a uniform, that is a legitimate reason to conceal your identity when you are in a crowd control situation or if you're being forced to work an overtime shift and you are going out church in Maine at bar closing and WCAX is filming on the sidewalk. You might conceal your face because your full time job is in undercover work. So there are considerations beyond that. But as a general rule of thumb, if you are assigned to patrol duties and you are out interfacing with the public, you should be readily identified.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yes. Agreed. And I just wanna make it clear that I don't think it's accurate to say this never has, never will.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I would never say never will, because I am always surprised. But the issue that triggered this is not of the same scale because we have less than a thousand full time certified police officers in the state. And it would be almost impossible to think you couldn't figure out who that was. But there are legitimate reasons for their appearance to be disguised if their full time assignment is in some other line of work.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Hopefully, that was the case.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Right. Don't know. I don't know the circumstances.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And I think that it's also I think the bill is trying to protect everyday people exercising their First Amendment rights and trying to help. So it's trying to balance those protections for very necessary valid protections for law enforcement and necessary valid protections for folks.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, can tell you that Vermont law enforcement has a long, very rich history of protecting and assisting Vermonters in expressing their First Amendment rights. I mean, I can go back to the late eighties to the to the abortion clinic protests in Burlington, where the Burlington Police Department went to extraordinary lengths to facilitate safe protesting, shutting down streets, go into the utmost care to remove bicycle U locks around people's necks who had chained themselves together. Like, the amount of care that Vermont law enforcement puts in to taking care of the public who are exercising their First Amendment rights is, in my experience, knowing my colleagues across the country, it's extraordinary. I can remember standing on a skirmish line at the National Governors Association in Burlington when protesters were protesting against Mumia Abu Jamal, had been sentenced to death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. And we stood there for days while they protested outside the hotel where the national governors were meeting. And never once did any of that, despite having objects thrown at us and having people walk right up on our grills and be spittling on us. Never once did it turn sideways. So I I I really think we need to recognize the extraordinary job that we have done in training our police officers that the First Amendment rights are to be protected and and balancing that, of course, to keep them safe from traffic, from counterprotesters, from any number of circumstances. So I think we have done an amazing job of crowd control, protest support, you name it. And it's unfortunate that we again, that we're spending this much time and sort of energy on this topic that, in my estimation, is taking away from time that could be spent to really make Vermonters safer.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Karen, it's back from you.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Thank you. You're welcome. I have two different topics. One is on this topic. I would completely agree. I know we've worked together when I I was at the Community Justice fully believe in the work ethic of Vermont Police Department law enforcement, and I agree. I think folks are doing the right thing. And what I'm also seeing is that what we're feeling is that leadership can change in in our nation, at our state level, and that can shift things for us. And so I feel like Vermont Builder Books are looking for stability to know that they can always count on Vermont law enforcement regardless of who's in charge of things. And so would you agree that, yes, currently, law enforcement in Vermont are are not doing any of this, but rules and things could change if there was different leadership and practices could change. Sure. I don't have a crystal ball. I would find it hard to believe that in a system where municipal police chiefs can be fired by their mayor or their select board or whatever, I would find it hard to believe that that circumstance would prevail for long. Likewise, that the state police would be so far off the mark, I would be fired, the colonel would be relieved of duty. There's many safeguards other than maybe for the sheriffs, but they really handle the protests in this way. They they would be an an assisting group. Right? So I do think that there are a lot of safeguards built in that that would make that unlikely, but not impossible. One of the suggestions that I made on the senate side was that this not be enshrined in statute at all, and that they direct Law Enforcement Advisory Board or the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to write a policy, whether that's a mandatory policy, like the use of force policy is now statewide mandatory, everyone must adopt that policy or advisory, that would be the way to infuse it and enshrine it eternally in how law enforcement officers maintain their certification because a violation of that policy would then be actionable by sanctions by the Criminal Justice Council. So that would be a way to make this less fraught with all the questions that you guys are raising and still get to the nugget that we're trying to get to, which is when you are doing certain scope of duties wearing a uniform, you should be readily identifiable. And I just think that's a better route, to do it through the council and through a policy rather than statute.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I just had a follow-up. Yes, ma'am.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I appreciate that, and I feel like it might be something that we can consider along with it. I think that's part of the goal that we're trying to achieve, is just stability. Because I agree, I feel like it would be very unlikely, but part of where we're at in the world right now is I didn't think we would be in the place we're on now. Amen. So I just appreciate you sharing that. The other one is you had mentioned about language. There's all these potential exceptions to things. So do you have, following up to what Beth Parsenault asked or previous witness, language that would help? I think you said involved in an investigation or something that you feel might be more encompassing? We could certainly put our heads together with our colleagues across the state and put together a list. Think that even if with the best effort of really experienced minds, we're going to miss something. And we're going to miss something that we don't know about right now because investigative techniques change as criminals adapt their ways. So we could try and offer alternative language if that's the direction the committee still wants to go. So we'd be happy to give it our best shot. Thank you for that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So going forward, should we have Tucker Dolan to be in contact with him and try

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: to work on some language? Sure. Sure.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Or you can go through Lieutenant Colonel LaLonde, we'll get together internally with Tucker and Mandy and our colleagues from the Chiefs Association and the Attorney General's office.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Zachary Harvey and Barbara. So nice to see you, Chris.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Nice to see you, Tim.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I appreciate you coming in and testifying on this. First, I just wanna say that your point on operation Metro Surge is very well taken. Scope and scale of that federal operation that we saw in Minnesota, which I fully believe that this is a direct response to, is far beyond anything that we've seen in Vermont and probably touch wood ever will see. I also wanna thank you for your thoughtfulness in really humanizing the men and women behind the badge because behind every person going on the front lines every single day, they very much, like our service members in the military, could be cashing a blank check to the state of Vermont and the service to our state and making sure that we all are able to enjoy our freedoms in a safe and civil society. So I think that's a point very well taken that behind every badge is available and people that care about them. The one point that was made by commander Raymond, you know, in focusing on this bill is that this definitely makes Vermont's children less safe. Could it potentially make Vermont's officers less safe?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: It could in certain circumstances, which as we know, there have been instances across the country of law enforcement officers performing their duties and being doxxed, their families being harassed and targeted, large scale social media campaigns, basically public shaming, public Listen, we have a hard enough time recruiting. We don't need any of that in Vermont. But that has happened across the state where families have relocated temporarily or permanently because people with malevolent intent have threatened their families for them doing their job. So, is that possible? It's not a very Vermont y thing. I would like to think that that wouldn't happen. But yes, it could happen. And probably there are examples out there. I can tell you that in my career, I have been threatened and harassed and followed through grocery stores and in front of my children and demeaned for doing my job and persons I arrested have confronted me with my family present. But that, to some degree, is part of the job. I don't want to make it sound like that should be allowed or permissible, but that is, to some degree, part of the job. But in this day of technology where people can literally find a lot of your personal information online in your house and get floor plans of your house and then publish them and suggest to others that they should go take action against them because they are a law enforcement officer, that's kind of like next leveling up of harassing law enforcement officers. Well, all

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: it takes is that one person to have them be insane enough to actually fall through.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, yeah. That's what we're seeing in lots of ways all around us.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: All around us, right.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: But not just about law enforcement officers, just the access to information being misused and people becoming less safe because of it.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Right. And I think you bring up a really important point there as well, that a lot of our law enforcement officers are, well, they all are members of our communities. And if there's only 1,000 across the state, they're very much integrated. They're our neighbors, our friends, our family members. The other question I have, and you kind of alluded to it, I kind of want to put a finer point to it, is on recruiting. And I remember last session before this committee, and you spoke to all of us and really pleaded that this is one of the number one challenges the department faces, is recruiting talents of law enforcement to come in. Can you talk about how legislation like this, which does not exist in I mean, California's only state that is vassal plagues. How it could

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: what's that? Well, we don't

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: know how that's gonna play out.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Well, we don't know how that's gonna play out. I think there's obviously There's

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: be some value in waiting and watching.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Concerns there, making sure, in the federal administration to. Focusing on recruitment, how could a bill like this where it is an anomaly impact your efforts there?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I think if it were written correctly and we were able to attempt to capture all the exceptions, Vermont law enforcement officers would say, yes, we agree. Like, when we're out in uniform doing these very public view activities, but for narrow, narrow circumstances, they should be able to be easily identified. So I don't think that the actual language, if it were right, would hurt our recruiting efforts. I think the general kind of constant recapitulation that we don't trust our law enforcement officers, we have to keep putting more and more rules and regulations on them, more oversight, more and more and more. And that has been the constant drumbeat since 2020. So we have just started turning the corner at VSP where we're losing as many people each year as we're hiring. Literally just this past year, we've stopped losing and we're holding our ground, but we still have 45 vacancies to fill. So could it hurt our recruiting? Yes. Because it's the messaging behind Very few people are going to actually read statute. They're going to read the headline that, again, reinforces this notion that we want our law enforcement officers to do this, but not that. And we want you to keep our highway safe, don't write tickets. And we want you to do this and It's the constant micromanagement of a profession that is dynamic and rapidly evolving and needs needs tremendous amount of autonomy and discretion in each officer.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Which is why it is so important that you can't just write. Yeah. So before

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: I go to Ian, explain

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: to you back a little bit.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I think I've done this before that I think in this committee, we haven't been sending that message.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: I mean, we've been leaving things on the wall that actually

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: have come over from the Senate that have had that message because we respect the discretion of people keep the law enforcement to prudent, their ability to be prudent, and not be affected by what's coming out of this committee. So I'd like to put that on.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes, you are correct, sir. And we appreciate our partnership with this committee. The headline is still out there when the Senate passes the bill and when it appears to be their main focus amidst an environment where so many public safety issues need to have airtime. So Understood. I understand. I appreciate you stopping the bleed in some cases, but to be responsive to your question, every time these stories play, it sends the message to the people doing the job that there's yet another reason to distrust the way we do our job.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I definitely try to make sure I'm very aware of that.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Yes, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Ian, Barbara.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So just want to talk about the bill for a second. So I'm an optimist, so I feel like we can maybe get there. Two questions I had were, one, and I just want to make sure I'm understanding the language that's proposed, if you're looking at it now correctly. So the masking law would be a law enforcement officer should not wear any mask or personal disguise while interacting in person with the public in performance of their officers' duties. So one of the examples you brought up was responding to an untimely, where maybe fortunately it's been a while and so decomp. Would that in any way, from your understanding, if it's someone's home, they're going they're arriving to an apartment, that that would interact with this law at all?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, if it's just them in their home, if there's just two family members, is that the public? If it's in the laundry room of a multiunit building, is that the public? If it's in a alley between two buildings, or is it in City Hall Park? Yeah. Like, sure. Could we I think that's that's we're parsing situations out because technically, one family member is the public. You're there to provide a service to that member of the public.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: And I think so that's I appreciate that. And I kind of was thinking down the same line. You know, it's like one, you know, one other man I know it's not in public. It's in private space, but it's a member of the public. So I was wondering what your thought would be to if we were just to add an intent language onto two that just said at the end of that to perform a performance of officers duties with the intent to conceal their identity.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Right. Which I said in the beginning, which is just say what you want. You don't want people wearing masks or disguises with the intent of concealing their identity, except in the circumstances that we've already talked about. And that does occasionally include out in public. But generally speaking, uniformed police officers should be able to be identified when they're doing their job.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. And so I think we can work together and find a way that we can narrow the law in a way that gets what we're getting at while also trying to capture the exception. There's going be exceptions that we're going lay out here. But I think I agree that if we don't try to narrow it some, then we're going to have so many exceptions that we have to capture. Impossible. So I think it's a balancing on both sides. Agree. Then I think do you sort of see that the identification side of this, which I think based on the last testimony we've heard, it's going to need some work, But do you just sort of see the identification side sort of following the same line of reasoning as the masking side?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I think the identification part just needs to be more clear about when you want that. Commander Raymond laid out a bunch of reasons, and I've given you more reasons about when you wouldn't want to be identified as a police officer. And there's many, many times when I was the director of the sex crimes and child abuse unit, where we would be in plain clothes, and it wasn't until we really got right to a certain point in an interaction where we would hang our badges around our neck and clip our ID on, and then you sort of shift modes at certain points in an investigative

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: encounter. From

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: not wanting to be recognized as law enforcement to I'm about to exercise my authority, so you need to know I'm a law enforcement officer. So I think the ID requirement needs to be more clearly articulated to on duty in performance of public facing duties and probably needs to be closely aligned with uniform functions. Although, as I said, there are, when it's go time, plainclothes investigators need to People need to know you're a law enforcement officer before you exercise your authority.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And I really appreciate your willingness to work with us to get there.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I appreciate your comment about the way that

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: you both plan to keep Vermonters safe and feeling safe. I've gotten an incredible number of emails from not only people in Burlington, but people from around the state that are really worried about this issue. And one person gave the example of the woman in Westford last month who was stopped. Did you already talk about this before? The woman who was stopped by someone in a road rage case, the was impersonating a police officer. And so I'm just wondering what you think we can do to currently allay fears of And I know nationally it's happening, but again, when a case happens in Vermont, it's sort of

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Sure. We've had cases of people impersonating police officers as children going back to And back painting of the general protocol is you request the person's identification, and if they do not provide it, drive to a safe place or call 911 from roadside. Impersonating a police officer is probably as harmful as a can do in terms of breaking trust with the community for those of us who are doing it the right way.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Right. And in some

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: cases, there was the McDonald's case in California where somebody just jumped at something. It's hard to know.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Wait a minute, I need to get my It's just

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: hard to figure out how somebody who feels like they are being physically attacked or are terrified, how they can know. Is this somebody legitimate and what should I be doing? Asking for identification, particularly if somebody's pulling you over on the roadside. Sadly, anyone can buy and install blue lights, not legally, of course, but they can do it. Asking for identification. But if there's any reason for concern, it is okay to call 911 from roadside and say, I have been pulled over by this person and I'm not sure they're a police officer. And that that is a totally legitimate way to keep yourself safe. As for the people who are contacting you about their concern that something that happened in Minneapolis could happen here, I don't think there's anything I can do to tell you that you can tell them it would never happen. What we can tell them is that it's highly unlikely, because of our size, that it would happen here. And that if it did happen, that it would play out in the same scale, again, based on our size and our rural nature.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: See, But question is on high alert, Of

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: course. And listen, I get that. I spent a lot of blood, sweat, tears in that city. And I understand people are afraid. I think that people are afraid for many more reasons than this because we're living in a time of absolute uncertainty where we don't know what the topic du jour is gonna be that is going to make people feel less safe. So I think that, generally speaking, I think communities in Vermont have very strong relationships with their general public. And if there are people in Burlington who are genuinely concerned, they should speak to Sean Burke. They should speak to their local police chief. They should make sure that they know who to call if they're feeling that concern. And I think Chief Burke has gone out

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: of his way to present it like Absolutely. A quality

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: So we cannot fix what's happening at the federal level, but we can stay deeply connected at the local level and keep a strong bond of trust with our communities. Were there lessons learned for your department from the Minnesota Public Safety Department? What

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: would have made things easier?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Let's put the Minnesota Department of Public Safety on the sideline, because I'm not clear what they did or didn't do. So I have no commentary on them. Whole situation in Minnesota. Have you ever read the book Bad Leadership? No. It's very memorable. You know why? Because everybody remembers their worst boss. Everybody remembers their worst boss. So the lessons learned for us were many about what not to do. I'm not sure we learned any lessons about No, we have an incredibly skilled and highly trained community action team. That's the name of the people who are going be handling protests. It's the community action team, because we are going to respond to actions in the communities that require a higher degree of training than what everybody else has. So we didn't learn any good lessons from what we saw in soda, but we are suffering from it, as you pointed out, because it makes people more afraid. And scared people don't make good choices. Scared cops don't make good choices.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Trust and communication. Thank you. Angela Arsenault?

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I was just going say, back to that, you mentioned you could share some language suggestions, and I really appreciated what you've said a couple times about write the bill for what you're trying to do. And so I look forward to that because I'm looking at the language we have, I'm like, yeah, it feels like if we just try to finesse it, we're gonna continue to run on this treadmill of It's like, what about this?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Riding a bike in the sand. Yeah. So it does feel

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: like a whole fresh start. What you're saying that instead of it's a little bit like we're dancing around something, and I'd love to just hear what you have to say as

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: far as be direct. If we went the policy route with infractions being adjudicated by the council, then you allow the council, which has a broad array of representation on it, to consider all these factors that we're wrestling to put on paper in a statute, right, to determine if it was a legitimate use of wearing a mask or not. So that's why I just think trying to write this in statute, it's inevitable that something will be missed, and it just isn't going to make the Vermont public safer doing But if you leave it to the council to adjudicate, you have the representation, you've seen the stakeholder representation on the council, and you write a policy with clear intent that you all provide, and then examples of exceptions are included, it allows a body of discerning adults to hear the circumstances of each separate situation that might come before them. And then if they believe that the policy has been violated, action can be taken against that officer certification, which is the real nugget, not the money. The department's gonna pay the money anyway, probably, unless the person was completely and wholly knowingly out of policy. So

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah. And that's such a it's it's an interesting thing to think about because I hear what you're saying about I think back to the conversations we've been having about particularly about Chittenden County, but also Rutland County, where there was a sense, a perception, that rates were through the roof. And I remember the defender general sitting in here and saying, crime's actually coming down. But people still have that feeling. And that, in some way, makes them less safe. As you just said, fear makes people less safe. So I'm worried about going the criminal justice counsel route in that it's not as immediate. I don't know that it would have this mean, like, take the temperature down of guns.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And would not have any impact on federal partners. Let me just say that. Because they're not certified. Correct. Which we don't know if this statute would impact that question anyway. So, I mean, there

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: are Well, so far, it looks like it would hold if we crafted correctly, but for for everyone. But that's what I'm sort of wrestling with in terms of is, like, knowing that perception impacts actual safety for everyone in

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: the community. So in policing, one of the first things they tell you is that perception is reality. It really does not matter what the data is or the facts are. If people feel a certain way, that's what you're walking into. That's what you have to manage on scene. And so this is best worked on at the local level with police agencies maintaining trust with their public, with their community. And that's gonna look different in Chester than it is in Colchester. That's gonna look different in Burlington than it is in Barrie. So I don't wanna dissuade you. If the committee intent on having this enshrined in statute, we are here to help try and get the best possible product that we can. Actually, it won't impact the federal partners. I'm not sure a state statute would anyway, but that is a question for legal experts, not for Jen Morrison. I think that if you're really trying to enshrine the values that we're talking about long after I'm gone and all the people who are serving in the chief's chairs now, then you do it at the certification level, not in statute. But that's just my opinion.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Tom. Me? Yeah. You didn't make your history.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No. I I had a And I wrote it down. Earlier, you said something about impersonating an officer. What's the definition of impersonating an officer? I'd have

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: to It's described at statute.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Right. I know some people do it for Halloween. They do it for to make

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Oh, no. No. No. It it definitely implies an act an overt action to take an action as if you were a law enforcement officer, to pull someone over, to lay hands on them, something like that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That will kind of, I guess.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: The minus 10, as far as an officer can't wear a

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, minus 10, that's pretty cold. I've stood at some perimeters out at schools in the North End Of Burlington when the wind's coming off the lake.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yep.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: And I've stood on a perimeter for hour and a half while they search a huge sprawling school. And I guarantee you, my I would have a balaclava or a fuzzy thing obscuring my face while I'm standing in a remote corner where neighbors could see me. People could probably see me, but I'm not going up and talking to them. Right. So the temperature thing is arbitrary. There's but you have to draw a line somewhere. Right?

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I I what goes through my mind is I wonder what the union would say about that by not allowing police officers to have protective gear.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Sure. And mean, Sean's been talking extensively about skin cancer, and I feel that acutely, all of us with very fair skin. When you are standing outside, I'm thinking July 3, where we break roll call at two in the afternoon, and you are on foot on the waterfront or in one of the beach areas until after every car is out of the city, till 11:00 at night, and it is scorching hot, and you are in the sun. And might be why I've had my face carved on so many times, but we never thought about wearing a mask. But now at this stage of my life, if I were out doing this job in the public, I would definitely be having sun protection of every flavor, creams, coverings, at my disposal because I'm not interested in having more chunks taken out of my face.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And my thought process is the same way since having one of those carvings done. Again, on on the minus minus, I didn't even think of the sun the sun issue till you brought

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: it up earlier and, of course yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: But my thought process is it's 32 degrees that somebody would have the option to wear because that's temperature that should take a shot.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Well, yeah. I mean, you might have to talk to people smarter than me who are either from the weather service or medical professionals to find out what the right answer is. But again, if you are letting a council take all the totality of the circumstance into effect and say, Yes, the air temperature was zero, but at that particular time, there were 13 mile an hour winds coming from the west, which means across the ice of Lake Champlain, and the wind chill could be estimated at x, that that's the type of information that statute would put everything into the statute just isn't gonna work. So I we'll go whatever way you guys wanna go. Like, if you want us to give you language to try and make the statute better, we will. I would strongly encourage you to direct the council to adopt a standard that applies to law enforcement officers. I don't know what that does about our federal partners, and candidly, I don't know if anything you do in statute would actually impact them anyway.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: We can't.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: The weatherman? Oh, I have such we we can rely on our

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Thanks, Jared. I just have I have a really quick one on the fines. It seems like you've probably heard what I was talking about with Commander Raymond in the book we came up with yesterday. It's the double jeopardy component of both the VCJC having oversight over this, but also the financial penalties for officers. And so I'm just kind of curious who would bear the burden in your eyes and your interpretation of legislation? Is it the officers? Is it DPS?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: If the person were grossly outside of policy, if they knowingly violated policy and ended up violating the law, we would not pay a penalty for them. But if they were given permission because of some extenuating circumstances, they were within policy or reasonably thought they were within policy, I think there's every reason to think that the department would bear the cost, not the individual. But, again, if they break policy, they're they're already facing double jeopardy because they're gonna go through a disciplinary prod. No. Oh, no. No.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: They're only us.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: They're get to us.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it's it's it's it's

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: it's it's jeopardy. Yes.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: It is. And and, candidly, that doesn't trouble me. Because if if a police officer gets jacked for some violation on their private time, they pay the traffic ticket. They pay the hunting infraction, the whatever. But there can still be action taken against their certification, and they can still be answerable to an internal affairs process.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Do you think the dollar amounts are in line with other fines that

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: No. No, they're really high compared to other fines.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yep, thank you.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: One other quick thought about, since the temperature threshold was brought up, I'm sure you've heard it's not arbitrary. It is the exact language in our emergency shelter reimbursement statute. I'm wondering if you think that negative 10 is the right temperature I don't know. I don't know, but

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: I can tell you that I'm a bit of a sissy when it comes to cold. I'm very sensitive to cold. We have some troopers who relocated here from Texas, and I can promise you that would feel really cold to them. But some people who grew up as outdoor enthusiasts and enjoy this weather might say it's not cold. So again, this is You're putting a dime I don't have a home. I am not wading into that. So thank you for the breadcrumb trail, but I'm not hungry.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you very much. So we'll go to one more witness, and then we'll take a break. But we'll go to major Sean Loan.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: He's a lieutenant colonel now. He got promoted.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry, lieutenant colonel. I updated the agent. Okay. Alright. Congratulations. Congratulations on the promotion there.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Thank you.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Fair enough. Excuse me.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Identify yourself for the record and proceed. Thank you

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: for being here. My name is Sean Long. I'm the deputy director of the Vermont State Police, and good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning. So I wanted to give a little background about myself before I get into testimony because some of the things that have come up today, I might be able to help with. So I started out in the Derby Barracks on the Canadian border, very rural area as a uniformed trooper. And I did seven and a half years undercover plainclothes detective. I did biker gangs, meth labs, narcotics investigations, including cartel groups, and then eventually went to homeland security, where I worked with Joint Territism Task Force and Infusion Summit, and and then went back to oversee all of those groups as a command. So I have some experience with the concealed identity stuff as well as the cold exposure. And what I wanted to do is talk about a couple of the things was I'll start out with the ID. It's been mentioned a bunch of times before. One of the big things about identification is, you know, I'm a police uniform. So I have my name. I don't have a badge number because we don't say police don't have badge numbers. It's on the car. Clearly, who we work for. Right? And our outside jackets is state trooper, and it has our name. So we meet all that requirement. One of the things I brought up, in the senate was our our criminal division folks. So they dress like yourselves, suit and tie, business attire. They don't wear identification. They wear a badge and a firearm and often a pair of handcuffs underneath the suit jacket. Right? They carry an ID with them and they carry a badge. But that is because they of work in environments where they may walk in to to interview victims. They walk in to interview offenders. And it's just it's a business attire approach. And one of the things that the the senate said, well, we'd really like them to be clearly identified. And in that capacity, I can understand that. But when you start to expand that, and this is where we get into the exhaustive list problem, we it's it's impossible. We can't do it. Is so as a plainclothes detective, I wore jeans and a t shirt and a wallet chain and a bad beard. You know, I did not look like a police officer. My job was to get, violent offenders, drug dealers, and people involved in gun trafficking off the street. Like lieutenant mentioned earlier, I might spend an entire day in my car sitting outside an offender's home pretending to be a telephone repair person so I can see when that violent offender leaves, a murder suspect. If someone would come up to me and ask me what I was doing, I can't tell them I'm a law enforcement officer Because in that neighborhood, someone's going to point out there's a cop in front of the house. We are not going to get that person arrested. And we did this with homicides all the time. So the narcotics investigation, which is the state police, supports the major crime unit, which is our homicide. And they work in an undercover capacity. And when I say undercover, they're not interacting as a back gun. They're not trying to buy drugs, but they're pretending to not be a police officer. It's even more than plainclothes. They're pretending to be something else. Maybe a construction worker, you know, putting up flags on the side of the road in order to have an eye on the person that we need to arrest. So that is one of the problems with this bill that I think is hard to get because when we talk about, okay, if you're in this capacity, if you're working undercover narcotics or craniosyncraticotics, or if you're working child exploitation. But what if you're working a homicide? What if you're working gun trafficking? What if you're working human trafficking? There's plenty of reasons to conceal who you are as a police officer in order to effect an arrest. Most often, that role is not affecting the arrest, but I think you mentioned it, sir. You may be called to service, in which case you have your badge, you have your ID, you have your firearm with you. So if there was and I always use this as an example. When I worked undercover and I'm working a you know, I'm in plain clothes and a T shirt and jeans. I'm wearing a badge. I'm wearing a firearm. I'm wearing cuffs. If I had been in a situation where someone needed help in the worst situations like this, I pulled that badge out, and I broke my cover because my job's public safety. So it's always there, but it's not readily identified. So I wanted to provide that on the IV, portion of things. I agree that when we are in uniform, we should be clearly identifiable. The other thing was with the mask issue. One of the things that I brought up in the Senate was, again, exhaustive lists are are are terrible because you can't ever hit them. And my concern is both the risks to the state liability wise into our people. So I use this as an example. I have you can see the scars on my face and the scars across my head. I've had really bad skin care. I'm very fair. Unfortunately, I've been bald for a good portion of my life, and I grew up in the seventies and early eighties, and we didn't use sunblock. It's just reality of it. We didn't do it. So when I work for more than about fifteen minutes outside, I carry a shield to the bottom part of my face. And I can wear my, you know, the campaign cover or another cover. When we wear baseball caps, I wear a larger cap to keep my ears covered because sun is a significant problem. Probably, well, it's been now two months off of chemotherapy, and I can tell you sun destroys me. I'm not looking forward to the summer. I need to stay out of the sun 100%. My hands now, my arms. And I'm thinking about if we have people that wanna work in policing, how do we protect them physically from things like sun and cold? So switching gears from sun to cold, working I live I live five miles from the northern border on a mountain. The idea of December 1 being cold is laughable to me. I have snow in October. It's common. And when you are at a fatal car crash, I could be standing outside for hours, and exposure limits at negative time is anywhere from about ten to thirty minutes depending on the. That is a risk for our people, for crossbite. It's a liability for the state, and it really tells our folks that you're not concerned about their safety. Right? What I offered in in senate testimony was, I believe, and I I don't mean to speak on behalf of him. The intent is that when we're interacting with the public, and I mean speaking with the public, not directing traffic, but actually engaging the public and speaking, that we don't have our faces covered when we're doing a uniformed policing approach. Because I don't think we're looking for undercover to identify themselves or to not be masked, and that's not the intention. But it gets so lost in that exhaustive list that what I hope that we could do is either if we are gonna push this forward, and and I support the the commission's recommendation. I like policy, because policy can change and adapt through a group. Statute is harder to move as we find ourselves in different places. But if we are gonna look to make a statute, then we try to find a way that this does not put law enforcement officers at risk, doesn't put liability on the agencies, and puts out the message that we do want to be identified. When I'm wearing this uniform, I have my name. Expect to be. However, if I'm working in joint terrorism, fast forward case, I don't want you to go away. That would destroy the case. So that's very brief. I don't wanna but I'm I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Questions? Yeah.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: First, I thank you for your service with the state and your communities. One of the questions I have is on page three of SOA. At the very top, we talked about tactical services unit. And one of the things that I'm very mindful of, especially being in a smaller state, one of the smallest states in the country, we might not have the full complement of law enforcement agencies that would come to respond to a given incident. So I'm curious if you feel like there are other groups that should be added to this list beyond Tactical Services Unit. I mean, from your work with Joint Terrorism Task Force with DHS, I think there are tons of different groups that we probably chat exceptions for. I'm curious if you could comment on that.

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Yeah. And and even even with our municipalities, some of our municipalities have rapid response schemes, Burlington, Hoskie. Some of the other ones are building ones, even regionalized ones. I don't like to call them SWAT teams, but what they are is they're special operations teams designed to do high risk warrants. Saying just TSU, which I appreciated that they put the state police in here. Thank you. I think it's there needs to be a broader term, maybe tactical operations units or or something along those, you know, specialized units doing tactical operations where we're we're not talking about, again, exhaustive lists, TSU, and then we add, okay. So I I was a task force officer in the Drug Enforcement Agency, or we did tactical operations. Do we do we add that? And then if we add that, do we add FBI and then ICAC? Whereas if we say if you're doing a tactical operation, right, where you need the protection and the concealment involved, then that would fit that whole conversation. And if you don't mind me continuing on that same idea, the Rutland Task Force, who I worked for for many years and ran, is a block, but it does not include everyone in the state that does plainclothes and underrecover operations, not just narcotics, but same with narcotics. Burlington has a drug unit. Barry's still going up for a while. Brattleboro has still going up for a while. That are separate from the Modro task force. So while we accept municipal officers on into our unit, some of them run their own units. St Albans had a very successful street crimes unit for a while. They had the reason to cover their face because they were also police officers, and they weren't doing the street crimes unit. So they're doing high impact, high surveillance, high threat targets, and then they're leaving that and then going to do a shift. So that was one of those situations where they needed to conceal their identity because of the work they were doing, but it wouldn't be included here.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: So and when so I think you present a really important point that I don't think that this is all encompassing. Right? And then we get to the exhaustive list of the exceptions. So that I just On some of your testimony talking about gun trafficking, human trafficking, gang related activity, undercover operations, it seems to me that for this piece of legislation to be effective, we would have to have listed exemptions for all those different activities. And I just think four, and I'm sure there are probably hundreds of different iterations that we should probably include here. I'm sure I'm missing some. No. No. But I'm saying that is that right? Am I understanding?

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: Yeah. That's the concern is, you know, I have a scope, and it's pretty wide for a police officer who have done a lot of stuff, but I'm there's still stuff I've never done that I may not be including in my conversation here. And that that is my concern. We're gonna miss something and put an officer that's acting in a good capacity with good intent in violation of statute.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: And then my last question is going back to the financial component of this bill in the fines of a thousand and $2,500, and and we've moved out from double jeopardy to triple jeopardy. But nonetheless, the if you have a Vermont State Police officer who's operating in good faith and good intention under the guidelines of the department and executing their job and making sure that our communities are safe, and they are having a mask for necessary purposes in their line of duty, and they are found in violation of these, how many officers so say this is a multi day operation they incur at this point, if they get $2,500 multiple times in a week, say they get $10,000 in one week of hypothetical operation, how many officers do you think are able to just cut a check for $10,000 and fines if they're just doing their job?

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: I don't think anyone ever wanna do that no matter if they're their job.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: If they can afford it or not. Yeah. Right.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Are there any other questions? Should I?

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Maybe it's for another day.

[Commander Matthew "Matt" Raymond (Vermont Attorney General’s Office, ICAC Task Force)]: Let's put you in the middle the question.

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: Happy to have. No problem. I'm curious. Well, the issue of fines, just, while I was sitting over there, had a communication with some other colleagues in the governor's office. And I think I got it correct when I said that if it were a gross violation of policy and someone had been corrected, you can't wear a mask in that circumstance, and they did it anyway, that they would be personally liable for that fine. But generally speaking, if the person's not grossly out of policy or has a legitimate reason for masking, it's going to end up accruing to the employer, just like an OSHA violation or other things like that. So I think it would be pretty narrow circumstances where somebody would be personally liable for the fine because they then end up getting disciplined for being grossly out of policy. And you can only go that route a time or two before you're gonna end up getting fired by the agency. So I'm not really sure what impact that these high fines would have.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: It'd be punitive to the Vermont tax at the end of the day.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Correct. Any other questions for the lieutenant colonel? Yeah.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Go ahead, Angela. Given that discussion about science, what would

[Commissioner Jennifer Morrison (Vermont Department of Public Safety)]: you think about making it a criminal collective?

[Lt. Col. Sean Long (Deputy Director, Vermont State Police)]: I I disagree with that, and that was something that we talked about in in the senate. There's a there's a lot of reasons to impose a criminal penalty on a police officer. I think covering their face isn't isn't one of them. I understand the need for regulations, but I I don't see this as a the the right the right way to do it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you very much for your testimony. We'll take a break and start again at twenty five eleven.