Full Text: Remarks to the Burlington City Council  06.26.17

 

I'm Haik Bedrosian. I'm a former Burlington city councilor and a former school commissioner. I live in Ward 7. My message to you is that it is inappropriate for the chief of police, or any police officer to leave comments in the social media of individual citizens. I am here to testify that it happened to me last year when the chief left comments on one of my Facebook posts and I found it very intimidating. I let him and the mayor know that I found it intimidating. I told Jay Diaz of the Vermont ACLU about it and he said ACLU had already received a number of complaints from others about the chief making them uncomfortable on their social media. On June 23 WCAX.com reported about BPD's arrest of a South Burlington teenager who had posted on her Facebook page pictures of bruises she said the police gave her. Quote: “Burlington's police chief is firing back with a strongly worded statement he posted to Huysman's Facebook page.” Huysman has now taken that post down and I am certain it was because the chief commented on her Facebook page and she found it intimidating. I know the mayor is certain of this as well.

There is no legitimate business purpose for the chief of police to have gone to this person's personal Facebook page, and leave a comment there contradicting her. The police have a special responsibility to not unnecessarily intimidate people. By personally commenting on an individual's Facebook post the chief sends a message that he is personally watching you, and when he visits your page and argues against you, the asymmetrical power dynamic tends to result in the post itself being taken down. Freedom of speech is just a concept and it's a very fragile thing in real life.

If he wants to put his side of the story out, then he has any number of his own social media platforms to do it on, and it's important that he stick to them because what he says and writes should be a matter of public record. Whatever his comments were on my post last year, and what he posted on Logan Huysman's page is no longer available to the public, at least as primary sources.

In August of last year I sent the following 3 recommendations to police commissioner Sarah Kenny for the police vis-a-vis social media and I urge the city council to really think about them:

First: the police should always remember that any tweet, comment, message or emoji they send from a police email or social media platform carries the full authority and power of their position and that they represent not just their own point of view, but that of the police department and the city of Burlington. Any officer , including and especially the chief carries his badge and his gun into any online social media debate he gets into, and as such it should be *assumed* approaching a stranger online for any reason can be intimidating to that person.

Second: to the extent possible the police should avoid getting into online debates with people about anything. The police exist to protect people's freedom of speech, not argue with them about it from their own personal point of view or even from the point of view of the department.

Third: based on the premise that an officer of the department, speaks for that department and the city when engaging in social media, the preservation of what that officer says and posts for the record becomes a matter of public interest. It is therefore advisable that to the extent possible the police limit their online engagement to the media platforms they control and can preserve for the record, such as their own Twitter, Facebook and web pages... Or perhaps to those connected to a commercial media entity with a physical address like the free press or Seven Days... But avoid engaging on citizens personal Facebook, Twitter etc, because that person will be free to change or delete what was said. That person may also not welcome it and find it extremely impolite and intimidating.