Ryan Palmer, who grew up in Windsor, took the stand on Wednesday and told the jurors that he was certain that driver Jorge Burgos would have run him over if he had not sidestepped as he was firing his gun into the car. (Eric Francis Photo)
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – The four-day-long trial of a police detective who grew up in Windsor and who’d been working to get heroin off the streets there when he shot a former Quechee resident twice in the arm during a November 2014 sting operation finally reached a verdict late Wednesday evening.
The Windsor County jury deliberated for nearly six hours before returning a set of “not guilty” verdicts which effectively exonerated Ryan Palmer who’d been facing a felony count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment.
Palmer, who was placed on administrative leave by the Windsor Police after the charges were filed and has since left law enforcement to become head of security at a private company in Kentucky, hugged his defense attorney Dan Sedon and a series of family members and friends in the courtroom as nearly three-year-long case came to a close.
“Obviously I’m pleased with the verdicts,” Palmer told reporters in the courtroom moments after the jury acquitted him. “This entire battle has always been bigger than me. I fought this for every police officer who is working currently and who will come down the road.”
“We’ve always thought the prosecution’s versions of events were unfair and the way that they evaluated a police officer’s use of force was also unfair and didn’t coincide with the way that the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled,” Palmer said.
“From the start the prosecution took one piece of really-not-that-great video and let their opinions and their feelings dictate where the investigation led, rather than letting the facts dictate that,” Palmer concluded.
Sedon, Palmer’s defense attorney, had suggested to the jury in his closing argument that the charges against Palmer were “political” since they were filed amidst the heated national climate surrounding the protests and riots that were taking place in the fall of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri when the “Black Lives Matter” movement was in its formative stages.
“He is subject to the same law as everyone else but on the other hand he is entitled to the protection of the law. He is entitled to the benefit of the doubt,” Sedon told the jurors, adding, “It’s almost unbelievable, if you hadn’t witnessed it with your own eyes, that his own government would do this to him when all of the facts support the credible witnesses in this case.”
Vermont Assistant Attorney General Matthew Levine used his own closing argument to take offense at Sedon’s statements, saying that he and the other investigators had sworn oaths to follow the evidence where it led and at the end of that process felt that Palmer had overstepped his authority and acted outside the law when he opened fire on Jorge Burgos, a former resident of Quechee who was wanted in Massachusetts at the time. Burgos’ passenger in the car was Brittany Smith from Claremont, New Hampshire, who was wanted on drug dealing and identity theft charges at the time.
Burgos, who has a lengthy criminal record, was characterized by Palmer as the “Number one or number two drug dealer in Windsor” back in the fall of 2014. Palmer testified that he was certain Burgos recognized him and intended to run him over in the moments before Palmer opened fire.
Palmer said he squeezed off a rapid-fire set of three shots after Burgos “matted it” and the car began accelerating at him as he stood next to the driver’s side front tire with his gun pointed at Burgos yelling, “Police! Police! Stop or I will (expletive) shoot you!”
Burgos and Smith maintained after their capture that they had no idea they were being confronted by police officers and thought they were being robbed, possibly by a former landlord.
During his closing, Levine suggested that it was up to the jury to determine whether even “if (Palmer) felt threatened, was it reasonable under the circumstances” to shoot Burgos.
Levine also reminded the jurors that they had promised not to play favorites or display any inherent sympathy for any of the parties involved.
Large parts of the four-day trial pivoted around a video of the shooting that was captured – although just barely – by a security camera mounted overlooking the parking lot of Ferguson’s Auto alongside Route 5 in Windsor, opposite the American Precision Museum.
The video, which became public for the first time at the trial, showed that the entire encounter lasted a mere 10 seconds. At the scene were a pair of detectives, two Windsor patrol officers in marked squad cars, a decoy waiting in a pickup truck and the fugitive couple, who showed up in a black Honda and then fled out of the parking lot, resulting in a 20-minute-long, 100-plus mile-per-hour two-state car chase that ended in their apprehension, according to court records.