A Terrible Result

This June, for the third time in less than five years, a mentally disturbed man was fatally shot by Vermont law officers. For the third time, Atty. Gen. William Sorrell has issued a report that avoids any suggestion that police procedures ought to be looked at.

The first shooting was of Robert Woodward by Brattleboro police Dec. 2, 2001, in a church. He was carrying a knife and was shot dead after a confrontation that lasted about one minute.

The second was of Randy Wiggin, shot by Barre Town police in the police station last November, as he pulled a knife while he was being fingerprinted.

The third was Joseph Fortunati, shot by state police in a rural area of Corinth five months ago. Disturbed and off his medications, he had threatened his family with a gun and his father had called state police to help resolve the situation. The confrontation with police lasted just 12 minutes before Fortunati, too, was dead—and his distraught father under arrest for not obeying a police order.

Atty. Gen. Sorrell's report on all three incidents was limited to a determination that police had legally sufficient reason to use fatal force. But in none of the three cases did his office address the more important question: What could have been done better so that the results would have been less deadly?

We don't know, for sure, if the police did everything they could have in these instances. As we were told by State's Atty. Will Porter, it's a lot easier to theorize from a desk than to face a dangerous, unpredictable situation in the field.

But just once, we would like to hear someone in authority state for the record that police intervention in all three of these cases was a failure—a tragic failure. In every case the only result that should be considered satisfactory—a situation defused with lack of bloodshed—was not achieved. In every case there must be something to learn, not just a legality to be observed.

Will Porter makes the point, also, that the only cases that get in the news are the failures, when someone is hurt or killed. Seldom is much attention paid when a police officer does a good job and, as a result, nothing bad happens (although The Herald recently commended a Randolph police officer for just such a performance).

Still, it's hard not to sympathize with a father who calls police to help with his disturbed son, telling them specifically that his son was afraid of police, only to have the son shot to death in a hail of bullets. It would help a lot to hear somebody in authority say that this is a terrible result, an unacceptable result, and we ought to find a way to do better.