BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - The mayor of Vermont’s largest city gave in to criticism and appointed a Black woman to oversee a study of the police department instead of the white man he had initially chosen.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger on Tuesday appointed Tyeastia Green, the city’s first racial equity director, to oversee the “operational assessment” of the city police.
The nearly $100,000 study is to explore a range of issues including how many armed, uniformed officers the department, which has faced persistent allegations of excessive force, should have.
Weinberger, a Democrat, had initially said he wanted to appoint someone neutral to the position and named Darren Springer, who leads the Burlington Electric Department, to oversee the study.
The decision was immediately criticized.
“This decision was wrong and reveals my own bias, and I must work transparently to address that,” Weinberger said in a statement. “Specifically, I see now that my focusing with this decision on achieving ‘neutrality’ in the way that the process was managed was wrong and reflected the wrong priorities.”
Democratic state Sen. Kesha Ram, of Chittenden County, the first woman of color to serve in the Vermont Senate, and others had criticized Weinberger’s initial decision.
“By questioning the neutrality of his only Black department head - and quite possibly the only Black department head in Burlington history - because of her lived experience, Weinberger has done more damage to Vermonters who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and anti-racist efforts in Vermont, than he may understand,” she said.
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