Vt. police shoot man after standoff

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Burlington police shot a man armed with two kitchen knives following an hours-long standoff Monday night in a downtown apartment building.

The man, whose identity and condition were not immediately known, was wheeled from the South Square apartment building at 101 College St. on a gurney just before 10 p.m. ET. Emergency responders were performing chest compressions on the man, who lay motionless as he was loaded into an ambulance and raced toward the University of Vermont Medical Center.

The incident was first reported shortly after 5 p.m. at the building, which houses seniors and "vulnerable" residents, Deputy Police Chief Jan Wright said. The man was making threats, Wright said.

By 9 p.m., more than a dozen police cruisers and SUVs were parked near the building, also known as Woodbury Manor, at the intersection of College and Pine streets. The situation was calm, though officers carrying shields and other equipment could be seen entering the building.

No cruisers had their lights on. The streets remained open. Officers on the scene, including Wright and Chief Brandon del Pozo, seemed focused, but there was no tension or sense of urgency apparent to those watching from the street.

Then, shortly after 9 p.m., police could be heard yelling.

"We're here to help you. Put the knife down," one officer said, his voice audible through open windows on the second floor facing College Street.

"Can you come out, please?" the voice said several moments later. "We need you to come out. Drop the knife, please."

Officers told the man his family was worried.

Coughing could be heard from inside.

At about 9:35 p.m., Wright stepped outside to talk to reporters. She said a man experiencing mental-health issues had been holed up inside for more than four hours, and officers were working to bring him out peacefully.

As she spoke, loud shouts erupted from the second floor, followed by a rapid series of half a dozen gunshots. Wright raced back inside. Officers could be heard yelling that the situation was all clear, and that no law enforcement personnel had been harmed. An ambulance and a fire truck that had been waiting quietly a block away raced to the scene, and crews hurried inside to aid the man who had been shot.

Del Pozo — who earlier had walked inside the building with a drill to help bore holes into the man's apartment for cameras to view what was occurring inside — spoke to reporters at about 10:15 p.m. The man was facing eviction and was believed to be a danger to himself or others, del Pozo said.

The chief said a mental-health professional had been speaking with the man during the standoff, but at some point, communication had ceased.

"We didn't know whether he was alive or dead," del Pozo said, explaining why officers made the decision to enter the man's apartment. "The question is, how long do you wait?"

Police used a key to enter the apartment. The authorities had roped the door shut from the outside to keep control of the situation, del Pozo said.

The timeline remained uncertain late Monday. Other residents on the man's floor were evacuated — although the building as a whole was not. At one point, officers fired a pepper ball, which led to the opening of the windows. Then, after the authorities entered the apartment, an officer used a Taser, del Pozo said. Finally, one officer fired his gun.

The chief said the entire incident was captured on police video. "There's ample body cam footage," he said. An investigation, aided by the Vermont State Police, into the shooting was just beginning stages late Monday night. The Attorney General's Office and the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office will be part of the inquiry into whether the shooting was justified.

This is the second police-involved shooting in Burlington since late December. Kenneth Stephens, 56, of Burlington was shot and killed during a Drug Enforcement Administration-led raid on his Elmwood Avenue home Dec. 22, in the city's Old North End, after he pointed a rifle at law-enforcement agents who broke down his door while carrying out a no-knock search warrant.