Following a slew of violent incidents in Burlington, Vermont in the last two weeks that culminated in the city’s first homicide of the year, the police chief and mayor are speaking about the public safety issues facing the state’s largest city.
At about 12:30 Sunday morning a Community Service Officer on foot patrol reported multiple gunshots had been fired in Burlington’s downtown. Other officers responded and began CPR on a man, subsequently identified as 30-year-old Teville Williams of Stowe, who had been struck multiple times. Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad was patrolling that night and joined the response.
“Several Good Samaritan bystanders were already attempting to render medical assistance to the victim. Another officer approaching from a different direction located and apprehended a female suspect, Aaliyah Johnson age 22, and recovered from her a .45 caliber pistol. The officers who were attempting to render medical care to the victim were hampered by a large crowd that surrounded the officers. I and others had to push that crowd back in order to preserve the crime scene,” reported Murad.
Williams was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center where he was declared dead.
Chief Murad says the initial investigation indicates the city’s first homicide of the year was provoked by an altercation between the two inside the Red Square Bar on Church Street.
“Ms. Johnson was observed to throw a drink on Mr. Williams and Mr. Williams was observed to assault Ms. Johnson. Staff from the bar required both parties to leave via separate doors,” Murad said. “Ms. Johnson apparently waited for Mr. Williams to exit and when he did, she drew a pistol from her purse and from a range of less than 10 feet fired several rounds striking him multiple times. Mr. Williams collapsed in front of the bar and Ms. Johnson slowly put the pistol back in her purse and walked south on Church Street towards Main Street where she encountered that responding officer I mentioned who took her into custody.”
Even before the weekend homicide, city police had issued a notice of a growing number of violent incidents since August 9th and requested the public’s assistance. Incidents include seven group crimes with some involving juveniles carrying firearms; two men pistol whipping a victim and miscellaneous assaults and robberies.
Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak was sworn in in April after running on improving public safety in the city. She says this and other recent incidents highlight the complexity of the problem.
“My administration and my teams across departments are actively working on this in both short-term and long-term ways,” the Mayor noted. “In short-term ways we’ve done significant investments in the range of $2 to 3 million in this current fiscal year budget which we are actively trying to implement including the hiring of ten more officers, the hiring of additional Community Safety Officers, the hiring of a senior assistant to my office on community safety, investments in our community response team through our fire department including more security downtown to supplement the reality that we cannot hire officers very quickly given the workforce hiring challenges out there in the entire state of Vermont.”
Focusing on the homicide, Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak recalled her efforts as a state legislator.
“This last incident at Red Square in particular shows that we really need more common sense gun laws. I was a legislator and sponsored H.98 for example, which included Burlington’s charter change from eight-plus years ago to remove guns from places that serve alcohol. While this would not necessarily have prevented this, it is a much overdue needed policy on a statewide level that certainly would not have hurt an incident like this in Burlington.” Mulvaney-Stanak continued, “The other big piece, we clearly need anti-violence policy here in the city of Burlington because there’s a number of youth involved in some of these other incidences. We really need to work to interrupt cycles of violence. That is long-term preventative work that’s really also needed.”
The suspect, 22-year-old Aaliyah Johnson of South Burlington, pleaded not guilty to first degree murder.
