Burlington’s interim police chief faced a packed city hall Monday night, answering for his department’s involvement in a March 11 immigration enforcement operation that left protesters injured and a neighborhood shaken.
Interim Chief Shawn Burke appeared before the Burlington City Council for the third time to publicly address the events on Dorset Street in South Burlington, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents spent an entire day attempting to arrest a man they believed was inside a residence. He was never there. Three other people were removed from the home, detained, and have since been released.
As the standoff stretched through the day, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the home. Burlington police responded under a mutual aid agreement with South Burlington, providing crowd control support. Vermont State Police also participated. By the end of the day, ICE agents deployed flash-bangs, chemical irritants and pepper balls against the crowd. Some Burlington officers now face accusations of excessive force, and the department has opened an internal investigation.
Burke defended his officers Monday, describing the crowd as containing “agitators” and arguing that his department acted with restraint given the resistance officers faced.
“Our officers showed a tremendous amount of restraint at times with the amount of resistance they faced, such as having objects thrown at them, being spit upon, being thwarted in advancing what is not liked, but is a lawful objective of the federal government,” Burke said. “Moving detainees away from a home is a lawful action by a federal law enforcement agency.”
Those words landed hard inside city hall. More than 60 people, most of them Burlington residents, signed up to speak during a public comment period that stretched past two hours. Many were on Dorset Street that day. They testified to the violence they witnessed and, in some cases, experienced firsthand at the hands of local police. A recurring question directed at the city council cut to the moral core of the confrontation: “Which side are you on?”
The tension between community expectations and departmental conduct runs deeper than a single incident. Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, which restricts local law enforcement from assisting ICE in a range of ways, sits at the center of the controversy. Migrant Justice, the farmworker advocacy organization that helped draft the policy, directly accused the Burlington Police Department of violating it.
“I want to be clear that the provisions that were violated on March 11 were drafted by Migrant Justice specifically with these situations in mind,” said Will Lambek, a spokesperson for the group.
The accusation carries weight because Migrant Justice understands exactly what the policy is designed to prevent. The organization built those protections for moments like this one, and they are now arguing that local police helped federal agents circumvent them in real time.
What makes this episode politically and culturally significant extends beyond the legal questions. The scene on Dorset Street, with protesters placing their bodies between ICE agents and a family home, reflects something larger happening across the country. Local communities are making decisions, sometimes in the span of minutes, about where their loyalties lie when federal enforcement knocks on the door. Burlington’s police department made its decision, and residents are demanding accountability for it.
Burke’s framing of the protest crowd as a problem to be managed rather than a constituency to be heard captures the central failure of the department’s response. The crowd gathered because people believed local police should refuse to serve as a force multiplier for federal immigration enforcement. Burke’s defense suggests he still does not fully accept that critique.
The city council’s questioning and the hours of public testimony signal that Burlington residents expect more from their police department. Vermont has positioned itself as a state committed to immigrant protections. When that commitment collides with mutual aid agreements and federal pressure, something has to give.
The internal investigation is underway, but the harder reckoning is already happening in public. Monday night’s meeting made clear that trust between Burlington’s police department and significant portions of its community is genuinely damaged, and a policy review alone will not be enough to repair it.
