A Vermont mother wanted to teach her then 14-year-old son a lesson after he came home with electronic cigarettes he stole from a gas station. That’s why she called the police.
What happened next that evening in May 2021 is the basis for a lawsuit from the mother alleging that Burlington police used excessive force and discriminated against her unarmed son, who is Black and has behavioral and intellectual disabilities .
After he failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes, two officers physically forced him to do so. Cathy Austrian’s son was then handcuffed and pinned to the ground as he screamed and struggled, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday and police body camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
According to the lawsuit and video, the teen was eventually injected with ketamine, a sedative, and then taken to a hospital.
“The police chose to respond to my son with unprovoked force and use of force, when they could and should have followed their own procedures and used safe, supportive methods,” Austrian said in a statement released by the ACLU of Vermont, which represents her case.
The ordeal underscores the need for adequate police training in dealing with people with disabilities and mental health issues, and raises questions about whether police are best suited to respond to such situations, advocates say. A growing number of American communities are responding to nonviolent mental health crises with doctors and EMTs or paramedics, rather than police.
Burlington police officers had previously visited the home and were aware of the teen’s disability, the lawsuit said. The Austrian fostered the child, who like his biological mother had developmental and intellectual disabilities, since he was five months old and adopted him at age two, the lawsuit said.
The Associated Press does not generally identify minors accused of or witnesses to crimes.
Body camera footage shows two officers calmly talking to the teen, who is sitting on a bed. His mother tells him to cooperate; she searches the drawers and finds most of the remaining e-cigarettes and tries to get the last one from him.
Officers say if he hands in the e-cigarettes, they’ll go away and you won’t be charged. He is not responding. After about 10 minutes, the officers move in and forcibly remove the last of the e-cigarettes from his hand by pulling his arms behind his back and pinning the 230-pound teen against the bed.
Adante Pointer, a civil rights attorney in the San Francisco Bay area, said officers initially did the right thing: discussing the consequences and trying to build rapport.
“The turning point in this series of events is when officers decided to go hands-on,” said Pointer, who viewed the video but has no ties to the case.
“There was no urgency here, there was no emergency where they had to force a physical confrontation,” Pointer said, noting that the teen was in a room with his mother and was not a violent criminal trying to flee .
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages against the city and monetary damages and relief for the teen. It also wants the city to accommodate people with disabilities in police interactions, including implementing officer training and adjusting policies on ketamine use.
It accuses officers of treating the teen differently because they viewed him as disproportionately aggressive because of his race. It is also alleged that injecting the 14-year-old with ketamine was “race-based disparate treatment” that would not have happened if he had been white.
The use of ketamine has come under scrutiny. In Colorado, two paramedics were convicted late last year of injecting Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man, with an overdose of the sedative after police placed him in a neck hold and he later died.
A city spokeswoman said Burlington investigated and found that fire department officers and EMTs acted in accordance with city policy and state law.
“We expect to vigorously and successfully defend ourselves against the allegations,” Samantha Sheehan said in a statement on Wednesday.
After the investigation, Mayor Miro Weinberger ordered the Burlington Fire Department to review its use of ketamine, Sheehan said via email. The state updated protocols to require physician approval for all sedation of patients with combative behavior, which was not necessary at the time, although responding paramedics did obtain physician approval, she wrote. A guideline on dealing with people with reduced capabilities is under review and is expected to be rewritten by the police commission, Sheehan said.
When the two officers arrived to talk to the teen, Austrian told them her son was acting erratically and had been having a rough week. She said he had an MRI of his heart that week and his ADHD medication had been increased the week before. She said he left the house with a hammer and scissors and returned with a bag full of e-cigarettes that he admitted he stole from a Cumberland Farms supermarket. He gave her half of it but wouldn’t give up the others, she said.
After officers received the last stolen item, they said in their police reports, the teen tried to kick and punch them. According to the lawsuit, the teen “reflexively stood up from the bed and waved his arms haphazardly at the officers.”
That response “is typical of individuals with his disability and trauma history who are placed in unnecessary physical restraints and denied space,” the lawsuit says.
The officers handcuffed him and eventually pushed him to the ground on his stomach. The teenager hit, shouted and cursed. Officers told him to stop spitting, and paramedics, who called police, placed a spit hood over his head.
They then injected the teen with ketamine. They said the teen’s suffering was “excited delirium,” a term the medical community has rejected, the ACLU said.
He was carried out of the house unconscious on a stretcher and spent the night in the hospital, the lawsuit said.
The teen was referred to the Burlington Community Justice Center, an alternative to criminal court, for two charges of assault against the officers, which were later dismissed, and shoplifting, which was resolved through the completion of a restorative justice program, Hillary Rich said. , staff attorney for the ACLU of Vermont.
By calling the police, his mother sought help to get him to do the right thing, said Pointer, the civil rights attorney.
“Instead of getting that kind of help, her child was abused,” Pointer said. “Her child was handcuffed, manhandled, a spit bag was placed over his head and a very powerful and lethal anesthetic was administered, and now she has to pick up the pieces.”