Cut the Police: The Bid to Slash Law Enforcement Funding in Vermont

The speakers just kept coming.

On June 8, some 250 people Zoomed in to a Burlington Board of Finance meeting. The next night, 100 more flooded a virtual gathering of the city’s citizen police commission. One after another, they laid out their demands: Cut the number of officers in the Burlington Police Department, invest in communities of color, get cops out of schools, and fire those with a history of violence. The activists, spurred into action by the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, asked that the city council not pass a budget until the demands were met.

“I am outraged,” Rebecca McBroom told the finance board last week. “I’m infuriated to live in this country and to see the way the African Americans are treated after 400 years. We have not progressed. We have not gone forward. We have seen enough. And we are calling on you because Burlington is no better.”