 I believe plenty of time for everyone. Can you hear me? If you could hear me clap once. Mr. Crabbe. Oh, and the Madam President is also here. Hey, Tom, did you respond to him? Did I do what? I'll jump in, okay. Yes, I did. We have a few reunions happening today. New faces, it's all good. We have another, we have you. So, good evening, everyone. Welcome to another in our series and a forum for A3 Vermont that is a co-run by the Rutland Area branch of the NAACP, and the U.S. Attorney's Office. We've been doing this since 2019, and I thought this was our last one, but it just popped out it's not. We'll be doing another one in County. So, if you have any friends up there, tell them to be on the lookout for some time. So, my name is Tabitha Gore. I am the, this is really trippin' here. I am the Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee for the Rutland Area branch of the NAACP. I am one of your co-facilitators tonight. My other co-facilitator is online. He's gonna introduce himself really quickly. Hi, my name is Aiton Nassred in Longo. I am a co-director of Farenham Partial Policing and Community Affairs for the State Police. And I am also Chair of the Racial Disparities Advisory Panel. Because it doesn't have enough to do. So, thank you. Before we get too far into things, we wanna make sure that you have what you need in this space to be able to participate. One of the things that Aiton and I like to do as co-facilitators is list some community agreements that are now behind these imposing boards behind me. But, so these are the things that we like for people to keep in mind as we go about having these difficult conversations. Recognizing that hate is a form of trauma for people who are on the receiving end of it. We wanna make sure that we create a space where folks feel welcome and like you can say what you need to say without fear of judgment or attack. So, the first community agreement is that we invite you to speak your experience. That means that we try to encourage people to use ice game ins and talk about what's going on for you. We ask that you take space and make space. Meaning you are welcome to share. Each participant will be given about five minutes to start with. And recognizing that, you know, again, your stories may be traumatic for you. I will try to give you a warning before time is up just so we can at least hear from everybody before we do a second round. We ask that you listen to understand. Nobody's here necessarily to attack anybody else. Just to share what you need to say so that our service providers and government have a sense of places that we can be stronger and better in terms of meeting your needs. So listen to understand. Hate speech and threats will be interrupted by me. We understand that some topics, particularly related to identity, can bring about strong emotions for folks. And we wanna recognize and honor that everybody has a different opinion or experience, but we will not allow anybody to let me threats or to say anything that is going to harm somebody else. We ask that you take the learning and leave the story. That means that you might hear something that is particularly powerful or impactful to you. And that's something that you wanna be able to take forward and share as you are in community with one another. We think that's fine as long as you don't give anybody else's identifying information away. Like, oh, Jerry said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Unless you have explicit permission, just take what you learn from this experience and keep going without sharing people's stories. That's also the biggest rule. That's David Tabatha. Oh, okay. And that is take care of yourself. Yes. These kinds of traumatic experiences that may well be expressed during this event can be such that you need a moment to yourself with the either with your camera off or out of the room where everybody is. Please be mindful of that because we are also concerned that everyone be well, simply be well. This is difficult enough. And if you need to take time for yourself, please do so. Thank you. And if something comes up for you and you need to chat with somebody, many of us stay after at the end. And I'm gonna introduce the service providers to you briefly in a moment. I don't know if there's one other, but I guess that was our last one, wasn't it, Tom? Yep. All right. So that being said, I just wanna turn your attention really quickly. Our friends from Orca Media are here today and we've seen them over a few fora. I don't know if you've heard about any, but we tend to have some coverage. So Orca is here today to try to capture the spirit of what's going on. They also have somebody who is in our online Zoom group as well. So if you are uncomfortable being recorded and you speak, please just say, I am not comfortable being recorded and they will make sure to do what they can to protect your information, okay? That being said, are there any accessibility needs? Does anybody have anything? Is the sound okay for folks? All right. Restrooms for folks who are in this space. The restrooms are that way. First hall on the left. First hall on the left. Okay, so if anybody needs a restroom, food and drinks are over here. Hello. Okay. This is a problem to throw away. Are over there. And please let me know if there's anything that you need to be in space throughout the evening. So that being said, I am just going to say the names of each of our leaders who are with us today. From the FBI, we have Supervisory Special Agent Grant Gage. I'm from the U.S. Attorney's Office. I just saw him walk in where they go. Nicholas Carras in Jules Torti. From the Vermont Attorney General's Office, we have Terri DeClarpe, Erevin Jacobson, and Julio Thompson. And where'd she go? That. Yes. Where'd she go? Over there? Okay. And then Human Rights Commission could make it, but Barb isn't here, right? No. And then locally, you have some, did I miss anybody else in terms of our federal state-level partners who are in this room? Did I say Gabby? Oh, hi. This is, yeah, Gabby. Gabby's the most amazing person who makes sure that all of this comes together. Yeah, what? Nothing. Okay. She's critical to this whole piece. Thank you. Locally, we have Chief Scott Clouart. Did I say that right? All right. Lisa Fline, who's co-principal here at Randolph, and Lane Millington, who is the superintendent. Did I miss any other community partners before I introduce one more person? Heather Lawler. Excellent. Thank you, Heather, who is the assistant superintendent and equity director for the district here. Thank you. Welcome. One more person that I absolutely have to introduce is my president, Roland area branch president, Mia Schultz. So she is joining us in person here today. Did I miss anybody else? Excellent. So over here, you'll see our agenda. We've just done the introduction, so we're doing great. We did our community agreements and media acknowledgement. So what we're going to do next is an overview of services where who's going to go first? Do we decide? Should we flip for it? Yeah. Okay. Julio, you're nodding too enthusiastically. So Julio Thompson from the Vermont attorney general's office is going to present first, followed by Jules Torti from the US attorney's office. And then if you want to be able to say anything, you're more than welcome to your list. We're co-presenting now. Jules Torti, I'm with the US attorney's office. We are the federal department of justice presence in Vermont. So if you think about federal laws being enforced, you know, you've heard of like a federal prosecution for bank robbery or drugs. We also enforce civil rights laws, and that can be civil rights laws, like anti-discrimination laws and employment and housing. It can also be criminal civil rights laws, which are things like our hate crimes or when officers of the law abuse their power. So that's who I am and that's the office that I'm a part of. And I'm Julio Thompson. I'm an assistant attorney general and director of the civil rights unit in the attorney general's office. We are the lead, the largest law enforcement office in the state. We have a criminal division and environmental law division, public protection, consumer protection division, as well as civil rights. We enforce among other things the state anti-discrimination laws when it comes to employment. So people who have problems in their workplace can come to us and we can investigate those cases, mediate conflicts, and try to reach a result that works for everyone. We also work with our criminal division and our county prosecutor's offices on enforcing Vermont's hate crime laws. I'll talk a little bit about what hate crimes are and what they're not. And we also have civil enforcement, so we have the authority to go to court seeking an order to keep someone, perhaps from harassing someone on the basis of who they are, who they worship, and so forth. And Jules and I also teach at the Vermont Police Academy, so all the new police officers who come out go through the class that we teach together along with a victim's advocate who works directly with people who are affected by acts of hate. So I think I'll stop right there. Should we turn to it? Yeah, so I think to provide a framework for where we're going to talk about today, we like to go through what we call this bias incident pyramid, and I'm just going to move it up a little bit, because I know folks over there can't see it. So as I said, I work in the civil rights field and our office takes in complaints. So something I hear all the time is someone calls or submits a letter and says, I've been the victim of a hate crime. Hate crime is like a fuzzy word. It's a word we hear a lot. And it's not folks' job to know what the legal label is for what happened to them, but in fact, a very little of what I hear about qualifies as a hate crime. So we're going to be throwing around terms today like hate crimes, civil rights violation. I want to give some folks a little bit of a framework for how we're using those words. So when something bad, oh, thank you, Aaron, is going to van away the situation. Oh, that's great. Thank you. So when something bad happens to someone on the basis of who they are, their identity, their race, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, all folks really know is that something bad has happened to them. We call it a bias incident. And bias incidents can be a lot of different things. They can be crimes. You can get punched in the face because of some aspect of your identity. And that's a crime. You know, you have your property destroyed. That's a crime. Crimes are punishable by going to jail, among other things. But something else could happen to you that feels bad because of some part of your identity. But it's not a crime. Like no one got hurt. No one's property you have to destroy. No one was threatened. But maybe you didn't get that promotion. Maybe you're not getting equal education by you look or some part of your identity. And that could be a civil rights violation. There are federal and state laws that protect people from being treated differently based on who they are in a way that's not a crime, but still violates the law. And our office, and Julio's office, I should say, Charity and Colo's office, because we do have the heads of both of those offices here, enforce the criminal and civil laws that protect folks, folks with civil rights. So as you see at the top, hate crimes, crimes most severe, but really the least frequent in this middle category. We have these anti-discrimination laws or what we call civil rights violations. But at the bottom is the largest group of incidents. And you'll see that they're labeled lawful, lawful, bias-motivated incidents. So a lot of what happens to people, I think, probably most of what happens to people, that is like a negative, bad, traumatic experience based on folks identity is actually not against the law at all. And then a lot of reasons for that one of them is the first amendment in free speech. But it remains that a lot of what happens to folks is not something that lawyers can help you with. And so one of the reasons we do community forums like this is to talk about how lawyers can help, and how to get in touch with your state and federal officials when something bad happens. But part of it is also talk about everything down here, the stuff that can be traumatic that can change your experience in the world where there's not a law that makes it illegal and to talk about what the community does to respond to those sorts of incidents. One thing that I really try to underscore is that just because something isn't against the law it doesn't make it like less bad or less traumatic, less important. So a lot of times like folks will conduct our office or the state AG's office and sometimes there's nothing that we can do legally to help. But Julio will talk about some ways that we try to still be able to help. But it's not a referendum on whether the thing that happened was bad. It's just a different way of treating it. So with that I'm going to hand this over to you. I'm just going to talk about something that touched on a little bit reporting. Like when one thing happens to you that falls anywhere in this pyramid, what do you do and who do you talk to and what might happen? So I don't know how many have had direct involvement with your state or federal government or even your local government on a problem. Historically here in Vermont government are given rules about what their job is and what falls within and what they can do for the public. And maybe it's because of the way that large organizations work. Maybe it's because of history and culture. But for a long time and that includes in Vermont, people came to someone with a problem and the government servant doesn't have the power to address that problem. Often the experience is simply I'm sorry that's not my department. It's nothing we can do for you and have a nice day and maybe give them a phone number for them to try their luck in the next part of government. That's the way it's worked for many, many years. And in the area of bias incidents often it would happen this way. If something would happen in the community people would be upset but it might not be a crime. They go to the police department, the officer finds out what happens and they can either tell right away that it's not a crime or maybe they send it to the county prosecutor who decides it's not a crime. Nothing a prosecutor can do. They can't take the case to court. They might get a letter explaining there's nothing that the prosecutor can do because it's not a crime. And often that's the end of the matter. And for several years now our office, the attorney general's office and working with some other government agencies have said we can do a little bit better than that. That if we get something to us it's not a crime rather than wishing people a nice day or saying sorry it's the first amendment there's nothing we can do. We're trying to reimagine what we're doing in deciding whether we or someone else can help the person who's harmed. Just because the first amendment says you can't arrest somebody or take them to court doesn't mean that you can't help the community or the person who's victimized by the conduct. There's nothing that stops the first amendment doesn't stop us from reaching out to the community to try to address that harm. The only limit really is our imaginations our contacts with the community and our willingness to help. And so we created something in our office a few years ago called the bias incident reporting system. And it's a voluntary system among accounting prosecutors and Vermont's police agencies and there are over 80 police agencies in Vermont where if someone comes to the police department with a complaint about some act of hate in the community we just ask the police department to share that information with us in the civil rights unit. If they did an incident report just send it to me because it might be an unsolved crime. We have a description of someone, a description of his car they did something that wasn't a crime so they're not going to pursue a criminal investigation. But it could be that a week, a month, a year sometimes we hear from a different police department a description of somebody in the same car who committed a hate crime. A hate crime is a criminal act that's motivated by bias against someone who they are. So one thing that we try to do is get that information from different parts of the state so that maybe, just maybe we can help folks connect the dots and maybe the detectives who are working on cases can talk to each other from different parts of the state and try to connect the dots together. That's one thing we're trying to do. The other thing is that something might not be a crime but it might be something like employment discrimination. Well we do employment discrimination cases so if the police tell us about something that happened at someone's work they bring it to us. We'll assign an investigator and start working on that right away. But we can't work on that unless the police or the community shares the information with us. The other thing we try to do is for cases that aren't going to court, no one's getting arrested, no one's being sued for that large component of these lawful bias motivated incidents, the question is if we aren't the ones to do anything we can't go to court. Judge will throw us out of the courtroom. Who in our community can help? So we've got folks here who work in the areas of community and restorative justice who may be just the professionals to work on that. Sometimes we talk to librarians, we talk to educators, we talk to faith leaders. We are trying to find out the right group of people who can address a problem because as much as we like to help we realize that sometimes when someone shows up in a suit looking like me, I'm exactly the wrong person to be there. That I am ghastly on the fire rather than someone who can help. So we're trying to work with communities to find out who out there is in the community who has the resources and the interest to be able to work with us on the bias incident reporting system. Now you're all a little far away so I do have this chart here that you'll come take a look at later where we show you the different agencies that we might refer you to. For example, if it's a problem with housing, you have a neighbor who's treating you poorly, but it's not a crime. It's an agency called the Vermont Human Rights Commission that does that. The federal government does that as well. If it's an area of public accommodation which includes schools, restaurants, theaters, the highways, anywhere government offices, if you're facing discrimination there, the Human Rights Commission can also do that. But it's not your job to find which piece of the picture or puzzle that you need to fit. The idea is for it to come to us and there will be the ones to work with you. We have a victim's advocate in our office who can talk about additional needs you have to make sure that you feel safe and that your employer knows what you're going through. Because Vermont protects crime victims so if you're having problems that work we can find folks to be able to help you out. So I'll stop right there. We have a couple questions already in the chat. The first question and I guess you got it Tabitha? We do. Yeah, Gabby's on everything. Okay, so the question what if the bias stems from police activity? Does your office also address this? And so essentially does the bias reporting system apply to police? It does. Vermont's public accommodation laws include policing. So if there's a complaint against a police agency and if that came into us directly we would have our advocate most likely talk to the person who made the complaint to see if they're comfortable talking with a Vermont Human Rights Commission which can do an investigation and they do cases to investigate if they claim to discrimination against the police department. Jules, you want to talk about the federal counterpart? Yeah, there are federal civil and criminal laws that apply to law enforcement so we can investigate police departments for patterns and practices and abuses of people's rights. We can also prosecute a police officer who under the power of his or her office violates someone's rights in a criminal way. And there's a few other federal laws that we can use to look at police activity. It's a bit of a patchwork between the federal and the state laws but from a criminal and a civil perspective civil rights laws absolutely apply to police officers. Is that a question on this as a follow up? Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay. I can repeat it verbatim so can you scroll through? Yeah. What if the bias stems from police activity? Does your office also address this? And I would add there are office also can criminally prosecute police officers as can the state's attorneys if they commit a crime. We're good with the presentation. Any other questions based on the presentation before we get into folks talking about some of your experiences and things may come up as we go to. So thanks Jules and Julia. All right. So we wanted to make sure that you had that background going into this next part especially if you're going to be talking about an experience that you would like to talk to our partners about. That being said, we really want to know more about what it is that you experience. How are you feeling in your community? Do you have experiences with hate? We're not going to pretend that we're not in Randolph where you've been a little bit under some scrutiny lately. There's been a lot going on and we know that people have all kinds of feelings and thoughts about that. We're really interested in hearing about your experiences and thinking about how these folks in government might be able to support. Please keep in mind our community agreements. That being said is there anybody that wants to lead off? Okay. If not, I have a whole cadre of questions. It's part of being a therapist. Hi, I'm Kristin Chandler. I live here in Randolph and I think my kids went to this high school and I think one of the things that's really struck me is about the divisiveness that's happened here over the last four or five years specifically racial bias and transphobia stuff. It has been that we're not used to being a divided community. It hasn't been my experience living here 20 years that we've had what now feels like a real demarcation between two groups of people and it's just sort of hard to figure out how to there's been a lot of efforts to try to make people come together to the table and work things out and can't we all just get along and it feels like it hasn't really worked and it still feels painful to live here. Thank you. Anybody else? Does that ring true for you? I see you looking at you. She's gonna make you see something. So I got a couple that I can touch on but right now while I have your guys attention and because I was made aware as an FBI agent here I want to bring you guys aware of something real quick. Of course and this definitely goes along with what we're talking about with this is definitely a racially motivated thing it's not for Randolph this actually happened in Berry but I think everybody should know about this too we're very close to where we are and the suspected killer is still on the loose so I mean that's something that everyone should think about with this story. About three years ago there was a young man by the name of Ralph Jean Marie who was killed and went missing in a hotel room in the Halloween hotel which is right in the middle of Berry City he was black these peers were all white he had an ex-girlfriend here and I want to say three or four other individuals in the room with him. On camera they were all seen walking into the room on camera there was never any video footage of Ralph ever leaving ever later on down the road there was footage of some of those people leaving out and coming back with a large bag and leaving out with a large bag enough to fit a body in now here we are three years later I'm still telling you guys the story and there has been no kind of really no investigation no new news, no nothing for the family no closure to this honestly the community me we've been putting our documentary together for this whole storyline that's been going on and we've actually been the ones that put in the investigation as far as getting people from Idaho to come down with gear to go down into the quarries in Berry because there was a story that he might have been dumped his body might have been dumped in there the police have been on record to say that they completely dropped the ball they did not do their jobs on this like when this all happened they never investigated or went to the room there was they didn't ask for video tape footage if any of you guys know most businesses their tapes run on a continuous basis so like after a day or two the recordings are recorded over so that footage is lost they never want to recover the footage they never asked any neighbors at the hotel or across the street of the house if they see anything hurt anything suspicious anything throughout these three years now people have come forth with information to the police Berry police nothing they they haven't taken any follow-ups the four suspects that were in the room they were I mean mildly questioning the beginning for a couple days but none of them were really like I mean this is a murder investigation and a person missing and I mean they act like it was just like a just a regular domestic fight in the room and everything was okay but this is a man who's missing I mean he has kids he has a mother cousins family everything and we're still fighting to this day we're putting all the work we just put up money to get cadaver dogs to come up and but this is three years later now we're doing all this and we're doing this the community like the police have no interest in trying to help out they say oh we're doing this we're doing but they haven't I mean we've caught them in every live so I mean we're having trying to go out to get other agencies to come in and help I mean I know how murder investigations work I know how disappearance work once that immediate unit can't figure it out they go outside and get the help they haven't made any efforts so I mean it's just sad and we're still to this day working on this every single day so just want to bring a little awareness to that just let you guys know I mean this is Barry you know Barry's only 20 minutes from here the person that did this is still walking the streets living their life so just think about the mindset that that says now oh I can go to Barry I get mad I can go kill someone in Barry and get away with it I'm fine they're not going to investigate the crime especially if I go kill a black person me I gotta sit home at home and think about that and I got my kids and my family here now what happens that happens to me I don't have family here I would hope somebody would try to put the effort in to come find me so that's that thank you for bringing him to this space I'm sure that his family appreciates him being here tonight so from our enforcement partners they have a question if that's okay what can we do in a situation such as this what are the options yeah so I'm the surprise special FBI here Vermont I cover down on all the criminal programs that the FBI runs in the state one of the main factors that we can do in a situation like that is we're police cooperation case I haven't heard anything about this case it's definitely something I can look into and see where they're at with it but in generally when you have something that you're wondering where to go with and what to do with it we have an FBI tips line that you can just access via the internet you can type information and it will find its way to us I do go through about 10 of these a day to get referenced to state Vermont specifically my office so it is something that we do see not always can we do everything we don't always open full cases on anything that we come in that comes in through that portal we look at them and I do address them and I do find some sort of resolution whether it may not be a federal resolution but it's at least a conversation gets started with somebody I'd say 90% of them so that would be the first thing that I would comment on that's kind of where we stand with I mean that just begs the question then though what do you do when your local law enforcement is not doing their due diligence and you think it's related to some sort of life because we know that if this was a young white woman who came up missing and they had videotaped there would be all sorts of law enforcement, press all sorts of attention to this so what do we do when our local law enforcement doesn't use the same sort of diligence for people of color this is to all of you so if there is a complaint about discriminatory policing or the lack of policing on the basis of someone's words that if a police department is doing that that would be a violation of Vermont's public accommodations law someone can go to if you come to our office which doesn't have that authority we'll work with you to get you to the Human Rights Commission where they will assign investigator or investigative team to look into what's going on and if there's a way to work out informally so it's something that there's some way to resolve the conflict the Human Rights Commission has very skilled mediators who work on those things or they can investigate the police department and if necessary take them to court if there's not a way to reach justice outside of court and Jules mentioned earlier the U.S. Department of Justice has authority to investigate police departments that over time display a pattern or practice of discriminatory treatment right now I don't speak too much for the federal level but there are any number of ongoing investigations all over the country right now into those very allegations I recently was in touch with a Suffolk University professor who was looking at a police department handling of 9-1-1 calls and how they assess what is truly a priority call and there are concerns in that community that calls from certain parts of the community and those are often communities of color or people who are English language learners are not getting the priority and so they have they're taking a careful look at that right now so there is that federal option on the pattern and practice as well can you hear? Okay and let's go back to Sean just really quickly I think one of the things that I'm hearing from our two folks here is one thing that they don't want to hear is that they do call the FBI or the Human Rights Commission or the Vermont Attorney General's office is we talked with the local agency and they said that they've done as much as they can so if you are going to be an agency that when they call you and say hey our local police aren't doing what they can I would advise against calling them back with that response number one it may erode trust even further number two we know that sometimes local investigations are not good as we've just heard right anecdotally and number three to build that trust tell them what you've done tell them what you're doing to make sure that the investigation is being handled properly so accurate now alright go ahead Sean it's funny you know this brother right here because I just you know I just seen your documentary the other day and it just brought me back to a situation that happened around the same time in Burlington with a kid Keith Gaston who police said that they jumped he jumped off the bridge into the river and they can't find his body and I think I've mentioned this before but haven't heard anything about it so I guess I'm just wondering would there be any way for someone to find that out whatever happened to his body because it was the same situation where it seemed like no one really cared about where his body was the answer that I got was his body got washed away into the into Lake Champlain and I don't know if anyone even went out there to look for his body or anything and no one got any answers or anything it just was like no one done anything so I guess I'm just on here to find out if I can get some answers about that anyone going to take that out is there anyone that can and that's in the space who would they go to yeah Sean BPD is the Burlington Police Department but they're the ones I think that you say how you haven't gotten answers from I think it's hard because we know that communities are not only overpoliced but can be underprotected by the law so when something happens I understand the suspicion I can't speak for BPD I don't know this incident but I acknowledge where you're coming from and I understand why it would be suspicious of what you're hearing from law enforcement I'm sorry I don't think anyone in this room though knows the case or has an answer here but we can chat after if you want to stick around Atom Yes I have a comment here on a slightly different topic that I've been asked to share the person who has written it is unwilling to do it themselves feeling that they do not want to out themselves so I will read it and I hope it has an impact one thing that has been challenging for me as an educator in town is that I know we have some students who are LGBT and that the trans students are regularly misgendered by their peers and even by colleagues while I want to assume best intentions it happens frequently and I feel more frequently of late which makes it hard to feel these best intentions whether people believe in us or not I want the community to know how harmful and dangerous this can be for our community members trans individuals and particularly trans people who are members of the global majority are victims of violence as well as suicide on a far higher rate than that of our cisgendered peers one of the most effective ways we can help people feel safe and actually make them safe from others is by recognizing people for who they are gendering and naming them appropriately I have a comment on that actually sir did you have your hand up because I wouldn't want to take your space did you have your hand up me? yeah oh this person said that they were in the school and I want to leave the official school policy super in Millington who is here but our office works a bit with schools on bullying cases and from that experience I want to encourage this person just to absolutely report any incident of misgendering or slurs that they hear every school in Vermont has a system for investigating incidents of hazing, harassment or bullying does it always work how it's supposed to I see Mia's face no it does not but it can't work if people are not making those complaints and I hear in this person's voice read through ATON wanting to assume good intentions and I love that but I also know that it's impossible to judge these things from the outside and the more the school knows about what's going on mentally misgendered someone and hopefully the school will look into that and the truth will come out and if they did intentionally misgender someone the school has a chance to address it parents, teachers, educators I know it can feel so strange to report someone but I do think giving schools, equipping them with the knowledge of what's going on in their school is one of the best tools that we have in perfect but one of the best tools we have to address the sort of bullying or harassment is it working? oh you gotta keep it up just cause there's some folks that can't hear gotcha I think the biggest thing that we face right now is exactly what you spoke about is the lack of reporting but that lack of reporting is combined with fear of reporting and so it's one of the things that we're working on in terms of trying to get the kids to have a comfortable space where they can come and they can talk and they can reveal these things to us so that we can check on them I am in kind of the same boat where I want to assume the positive but I also know after the last couple of months that that's not always true and the only way to find out the truth is to be able to hear from folks and to be able to investigate so it's real important but if there are good ideas that come out tonight especially about reducing that fear so that people can feel more comfortable reporting I want to hear them because I think that's our biggest issue that we've got here thank you we have an online question and then we're going to come here yeah Mr. Bilowski I tried sorry can we unmute him please so he can ask his question oh thank you yes you did get it correct thank you actually a lot of people don't get it correct Polish in any case my question is just about it's actually in the comments but I'll read it anyway does your office deal with enforcing the compelled speech doctrine this is a principal part of the first amendment of our Constitution that deals with no one should ever be forced to believe anything on any issue that that person does not agree with and I might know speaking candidly I think this can affect people on both sides of the issues we don't want people on the far right or the far left in any institution taking some of their core beliefs and saying this is a condition of employment or this is a condition of being able to attend the school and so on and so forth but I think we could all and frankly whether you agree with it or not it's part of the first amendment of our Constitution so can you comment on how does your office deal with this aspect of the law the FBI or any law enforcement for that matter okay okay so thank you okay the question is does your office respect the first amendment the compelled speech doctrine is the other part we always hear about the free speech part you know we were able to say what we believe the other half of that is the compelled speech doctrine is nobody should be forced to believe anything that they don't believe so does your office my question would be does your office enforce this and how does it do so so most first amendment enforcement really does happen in the private context just you know like looking historically and modern day there are certain federal laws that authorize our office the DOJ to address usually patterns and practices of constitutional violations so like you know we would always have to look at the thing that's happening and look at the law and figure it out but that's the framework for our office if there was any constitutional violation we would be looking at just for purposes of quoting you in my article thank you for your answer you again are your title, your name I think it's attorney's office thank you for your answer and Michael what news agency are you from I'm sorry I usually say it when I introduce myself two north reports we're just a small independent outlet yes alright thank you so much and Michael Balowski I don't know if you were here in the beginning but we had done a quick intro for our friends in the media and so again just a reminder to folks if you do not want to be recorded with the exception of our partners if you were a community member in attendance and would prefer not to be quoted you can certainly say that as you offer your I did a little thumbs up I don't know if anybody saw it but I was listening and you said that did anybody else want to respond okay you had a question thank you do you want to talk yeah we're over here and then here and then you can talk okay so going back to what we were talking about before with like misgendering people in school and stuff I'm a I'm a junior here at the high school I'm queer and non-binary and I've talked to a lot of my peers who constantly deal with being misgendered like everyday so and I think a big part of it is like they've just lost faith in the system completely and when it happens they're like oh well there's nothing they can do about it they feel like if they report it to somebody nothing's going to be done which has caused them to stop reporting so I don't know like how we can then get students to feel comfortable to start reporting these things again when they've just completely lost faith in the system that shouldn't be put on the students to somehow get faith back just they can start reporting things again like there has to be more done because I know so many people do not feel comfortable I'm just thinking about my I'm new to this school this year I previously attended U32 in Montpelier and just it really it's sort of like opened my eyes to how a lot of people perceive Vermont as a progressive state that's absolved of a lot of many problems but like coming here I realize that's not true at all just the environment shift that I have experienced coming here has made me realize that like there are really places in the state that I do not feel safe to like fully be out to people and this sort of town being one of those places I think it's just really important to acknowledge how like what we may perceive Vermont as this like liberal safe haven or whatever it's really not and while it is better than some other states in the country like thinking about all we've heard so many things already just like it's important to like fully remember that I feel like all this is sort of just feeling more people should be aware of that thank you educator here for OSSD and for two river supervisor union in the Ludlow area and I'm speaking on behalf of students and families that I work with for the experience discrimination sorry and one reported an incident years ago it was probably in 2018 2019 of hearing a comment while walking down the hallway in earshot of another student who said I wish I could shoot all of the what the race was and in response to administration finding out rather than really kind of pursuing it with a hard line they were trying to protect the other student in one sense because he suffered from mental illness it came out later that there were actually guns in the home and this other student I think tried to shoot his father I think that was what the news report was and so the family to which the student who had heard this comment after hearing that there was before and after hearing that there was just a lot of fear there was the student that I knew and I'm speaking on behalf of was not sleeping was not feeling safe at school and not feeling safe in the community nor was this family and that same student at VTC this year experienced a teacher asking a question that was just not appropriate and rather than saying something to the teacher or having a discussion or some sort of justice circle with the teacher they simply offered if you're not comfortable can we just change you to another class and so what's happening that are being reported and just not being followed up on sufficiently whatsoever the reporting it's great to have the reporting but when people are so few in a number in a community it's very very difficult to feel safe reporting because anything that happens as a result of that reporting will then have backlash on the students and potentially on their families so I often hear about these things and I have to ask my students if I can report it and they will say no I don't want you to report it so I say can I report it anonymously and not reveal you or the exact situation so that I can just let it be known to the administration that this is going on and they will say yes and so I'll do it that way but that's because they fear backlash on any reporting and so something maybe not in the community has a way to report so like I've referred to the state level anonymous reporting and I think that maybe trying to further that more and go through that channel and back in is a safer way for a lot of kids and families thank you Atom did you want to go with the comment and then we have our little friend to speak yes I do to the statement I read just a bit ago this person writes my concern is that the people that need to hear this are perhaps not present in conversations like this one happening now suggestions for increasing empathy from these people who are often not part of the dialogue and that's a question my assumption is are there suggestions from anyone for increasing empathy from these people who are often not part of the dialogue that's it was that a rhetorical question um I don't think it is actually so the question is what can be done to increase the empathy of the people who need to hear this but aren't in this room right and not participating in this kind of a conversation isn't that the million dollar question this was my comment my name is Katie VanHouten hi Katie and I'm an educator and parent as well of kids in the district it just feels like a lot of times people are here when they're riled up about something and if the meeting has a banner of something to do with our mascot or something to do with locker rooms or bathrooms you get all this turnout and then they're there to listen but instead it becomes sort of it's not a productive conversation but if you advertise it in the way that this one was advertised you get a different okay you're nodding you understand what I'm saying you get a different crowd when you advertise like this you get the crowd that's actually interested and concerned about what goes on with people who are LGBT etc they're gonna show up I mean in a certain sense it's a self-selecting group I think that's where you're going yes it is and also just wondering like where do you go from there as well I have the space here I don't want to take any more time but hearing from the student that just spoke super powerful so just thank you so much and it's such a good reference when you hear of a student coming from a different school because what we hear is this is everywhere and I don't believe that it is everywhere at this caliber mm-hmm so thank you that student who spoke thank you and to reiterate what our student said was why is it our job to come to you to report why do we have to do even more right when we are the least protected the most vulnerable and with the least resources yeah I love that question we have another young person let's see if they'll talk hi do you want to talk what is it like to be here don't worry you did great let's give a round of applause to our youngest participant Eva you probably have a better time getting up on the floor so one theme we hear a lot in these forums and it's coming out tonight here too is a sense of dissatisfaction with the response by the government and I just want to give a plug for more use of restorative approaches our community member over here mentioned that maybe there could be a circle response of some kind but we hear this in a lot of communities that maybe a more of a grassroots or ground up approach that restorative justice can provide would really be welcome and in a restorative conference or circle or conversation there are certain questions that are asked that I think communities really could stand to benefit from one question is what was the harm how are you harmed what happened to you what did that feel like why were you harmed why was that harmful another question is how can we help address the harm what do you need and Tabitha's question that she wrote on the board goes to this too Tabitha wrote down what do you need in order to trust that you can report issues a third question is whose responsibility is it to help address the harm and that goes to something else we hear about a lot that it's not the harmed person's responsibility to address how the harm is fixed it's not the harmed person's responsibility to get accountability for what happened it's all of our responsibilities and sometimes the typical criminal justice system or a punishment approach is just not satisfying or maybe it just can't happen because of that bottom part of the pyramid it doesn't mean communities can't do something to address the harm that we're all experiencing that some of us are experiencing a lot more than others do you want to talk just a little bit about the restorative opportunities in this community I honestly are there folks here who hi I'm Kim Anderson and I'm the director of the orange director of reentry services for the orange county restorative justice center and it was nice to see so many people here and not have it be screaming which for you folks from the state is very unusual for us we offer our services for any of the community conversations that have been put out here today I will say that in orange county I've worked for about 11 years doing reentry and reparative and diversion and I do not think that I have met a person in a minority group who has not been victimized because of who they are not one and I would say multiple times in their home area our work is to support them to do whatever they're comfortable doing and I'm sitting here thinking about and every time I work on one of these cases I'm thinking about what could more could we be doing and so I offer to everybody here if you have ideas of how we could better integrate with the criminal justice system we're open to that we work very closely on these cases with our boards but we're always looking for more when people aren't comfortable coming forward and we see a lot of these cases and I'm so glad to see some folks here that I've worked with and I'm just appreciative that people are willing to come out again and again to say the same things thank you a couple of things made somebody in the chat so we have a question that we want to post which is what do you need in order to trust that you can report issues so that's something just to keep in your mind as we're having this conversation and thinking about what you said about a fractured community and like I said Randolph has been on one heck of a ride this year so think about what it is that you need to start to heal that one last quick comment and I've been to put it kind of a community reminder people who are victimized are not victimized because of who they are they are victimized because somebody else believes that they have the right to harm them based on that person's own beliefs about that person's identity group so if I get hurt it's not because I'm a black woman it's because you think that I'm less than so we want to make sure that we're paying responsibility where it belongs we have one comment on the chat and then we'll come to you yeah could we unmute Mr. Belowski again he's got another question I was just wondering I've written a lot of reports over the years even work before all the shutdowns in COVID actually I'm thinking like five or six years ago even state and local law enforcement agencies have really been hurting for staff and I imagine that impacts their ability to respond to all sorts of situations including the concerns that we're hearing about tonight can somebody anyone from the law enforcement realm there tonight speak to how this presents challenges and what's being done to try to address it thank you good question he's like I'm a reporter of course it's a good question anybody from our law enforcement folks have a response for that are we seeing a in law enforcement's capacity to respond to the issues that we're hearing tonight so Mia is saying that murder should be a priority for law enforcement regardless of staffing I'm sorry could you repeat that Tabitha I didn't quite get that Mia said that murder should be a priority for law enforcement ah yes I think Mike you wanted to hear from the law enforcement folks here right yeah well I just reported over the years and like select board meetings and municipal meetings and also the state police who often deal with those entities they're just all short and this was going on like before you know before COVID even I remember just writing for the local paper so I just imagine it creates challenges and you know for responding for these types of crimes or concerns anyone can I speak Katie Van Houten online sure I think staffing shortages are an issue across the board including in the schools so I think it's our new normal and we just have to move on from it I don't want to be quoted for this and and I'd love it if this could be like brought back more to the local level of like the Randolph Orange County community situations that we're struggling with I think it's a bit of a mistake to get into the mold of thinking that the sole responsibility for public safety are people who are sworn and carry guns the public has always been a co-partner in public safety and I think our experience in working with law enforcement at the state level in the Attorney General's office is that we've seen a greater willingness an opening of relying more heavily on community participation in dealing with conflict we're in a room full of people here who don't who are part of making communities safer for people so that they can pursue what we all want to pursue which is to grow and raise our families and be our best selves and so there are always going to be more of us in the community than there are going to be people in police cars or writing desks working cases and part of what we're trying to do with the biosense and reporting system and talking with the communities is to enlist your help we need your help we need to know where the problems are we need to find people who have skills that we don't have in community and restorative justice and work on the issues that way it's not a single solution there are just different parts and that includes education that includes employment, housing dealing with the business community civic leaders community groups we relied very heavily on the NAACP is right next to me we're so indebted to the information and the problem solving that they bring to problems because a lot of the times we would say from the beginning we are not the right people but the other thing I want to say about why biosense and they're dealing with this is so important and this is something that we teach in the police academy which is that a hate crime or a biosense incident is a fear multiplier an attack on one is an attack on many an attack on all in that community that's true regardless of what group you're talking about if someone is attacked because someone has difficulty getting along with somebody because of the way they present themselves to the world that's felt by the family by the neighbors by coworkers, classmates it's felt by everyone that's part of the reason why in the criminal justice system you have a certain punishment for a crime because a hate crime is a higher level of punishment it's because the impact on the community is felt more deeply and lasts longer and so I think regardless of what our resources are we could always use more our greatest resource for learning about what's going on and if there's a criminal investigation having people cooperate with the investigation whether they're witnesses or they know our witnesses or evidence is we're working with this trying to find the right right way to resolve a conflict that lies outside of the court system I just think we need to get out of the mindset that we have certain people who dress in uniform or dress in suits like me and we're the ones that we're supposed to do it we can't do it alone that's why we're here in regard to answering that question in another way I would like to introduce our partner the other co-director of Farron and partial policing and community affairs for the state police Captain Barbara Kessler Captain can we unmute her first off and give her the floor Hi there, can you hear me? Yep. Hi so yeah I'm Captain Kessler Aton's partner with the Farron and Partial Policing Unit I just want to mention for the staffing issues yes it's been very difficult for us and all police departments but staffing issues don't change our job descriptions or our duties and we don't define our response to crimes by people's race or gender or ethnicity so we respond as best we can to all complaints and you know the crimes that we can enforce and you know take action on our response times might be a little slower because you're dealing with someone who might be further away that might not be a closer trooper but other than that I don't think it really affects these issues Thank you Thank you Do you want to? After it turns green wait a second or you'll be disappointed No That question on the board I'll bring it right to a personal level of my grandson and other students here at Randolph Union High School If someone could get to know at kind of a one on one level in a more personal conversation in school where the kids that are transgender and the kids who come from families where their religious position is very strongly against the possibility of transgender life I've heard you know you hear you're biologically born avoid that's what you are okay so that's a very deep personal religious belief and then there are the transgender folks like my grandson who is working very hard to be true to who he believes he is in his heart but if there's no chance to talk one on one in school with each other as people it's just these ideologies that are fighting against each other not the human beings and the need for respect those sides are never going to come to a spot where they agree and that has to be okay that's part of life but respect so that safety is preserved for both that's where my heart is breaking for what's happening here at the high school and fear of reporting your mid-being misgender I don't know all the technology I'm learning, I have to pay 25 cents every time I say the wrong pronoun which is just fine one of my grandchildren says grandma if you were doing it on purpose that would be you domestic so 25 cents it just seems like if kids from very conservative religious groups could talk with kids that are living with their transgender issues over lunch and I don't know how that happens at the high school I know there's terrific and I hate to see new private schools being advocated because I've never felt good about private schools I mean we live in that world together if you go to a private school where you only hear one point of view how are we ever going to come to love each other like we should as human beings it's very painful for the kids in high school thank you for sharing your story when I hear you asking for opportunities for people to connect across difference what those look like oh that's going to be interesting yeah I think it would definitely be really beneficial to figure out ways that we can have that open dialogue but going about that I think can be a little tricky one because I know I'll put students in the position of having to educate their peers at least off the back because that can be very uncomfortable being like a situation where you're talking with somebody who may not like agree with who you are I think like there definitely should be ways that we start implementing just like normalizing these things like curriculum I think education is extremely important when addressing these issues and I feel like maybe a good way to start would be just implementing things in curriculum like reading books or trans authors about trans experiences or something like that just to like humanize people and expose like these identities people without necessarily having to put students in the position of educating others because that can be tricky and very like emotionally taxing I think there should be ways that we should be able to start I would love to see that in the school I don't know how that would happen but it should so we have a way, we just got to figure out the what Mia and then a question online yep I'm trying to find take space, make space, I'm not trying to take too much space but I I just wanted to comment that this is cultural right and I think at the beginning you were talking about we never had a way of us like this I would venture to say you did it was just not the generation wasn't speaking up, they were taking it and now we have a new generation of people who are voicing their identities they're proud of who they are and they don't want to have to just take it anymore so there's that going on and so anytime you push against what's been normalized you're going to see some pushback that's you know what we know and I know that this community has had conversations I've been part of some of those conversations and we've asked some of these things and a lot of times it falls on a lot of deaf ears I feel like I'm using my eyes statement that there's a sense of this is too hard there's too much pushback we have to listen to everybody's perspective on this but when it comes to our humanity do we need to listen to all of their painful perspectives or do we just make the choice as people who have power in our communities to ensure that all the students are safe and we do that hard work and we listen to the students who say I don't feel safe reporting to you here's what I need to feel safe and make that happen and not push that back and then whatever they have to say you believe them and you validate them and you put things in place to ensure that they have safety regardless of the noise around you that this can't happen or this shouldn't happen so that's my little soapbox because it's really a cultural thing and it has been happening we just have people now who want to say something and don't want to put up with it anymore yes if we could unmute Tony Cortez he has his hand up for a question please you are fantastic DEI coordinator for independent school in Vermont I am also an alum of that school I'm biracial I'm transgender I am I'm in my early 30s and I connect with kids in a way that I focus on relationship building as well as focusing on sort of justice implementation of practices and ways that that can build community based on repairing harm that's done and the needs that are created from harm so I think for those who are looking at solutions I think that there are solutions there is hope for change so I would just say I think there's positive aspects to this too is the fact that we have youth out there that are looking to relationship build with each other COVID really did a really big hit on them educationally academically, socially and I think taking that and putting yourselves in their shoes is like their experience through COVID and their experiences and what has happened in the past few years also politically and socially it has really made a shift in their experience academically it's way different than my experience so I'd just say take those things in consideration too and also when we talk about gender and gender identity I think a piece of it too is also recognizing that some people experience multiple forms of trauma and also like in a sense like this privilege based on their ability or their race so those are some things that I want to just shed light on too when we talk about gender identity and the trans community I also want to shed light on the trans community that are people of color that have an experience that is different than my own and some others so I just want to touch base on that one but yeah I think that supporting students in the best way you can by relationship building and really meeting them on an empathy level no matter what their background is too like I have students have different political perspectives in mind but I have really good relationships with them as far as talking about fishing or things that we have in common in building those relationships and I think it's about building community but just looking at the root of like community and reminding ourselves that as well as addressing those topics is like why is something appropriate and not appropriate and what harm does that cause or needs that it creates but that's just my say but I hope you all have a good night thank you Thank you Tommy Important points about building community so as we look to build community I just want to revisit our thoughts here about how or what do we need in order to trust that you can report issues or be able to talk with the folks in this room about issues that are happening I want to I think we need to try to reflect back two things that I've heard one is that folks sometimes don't report because they don't believe something will be done and one is that folks are not reporting especially in a small community because they're worried about about blowback on themselves so there's fear that something will be done and that it'll come back bounce back on them and there's a fear that nothing will be done so I'm just like I wanted to kind of articulate what I've heard folks say in case it's helpful in spurring further discussion question for me sitting in the government role is something is happening like how do we show our work for the community in a way that's meaningful and what assurances or what protections we'll be talking about that might make that fear of reporting and the fear of blowback dissipate a little bit some more things to think about question in the chat and then we'll come over here yes and this is from Tebbia Kalman so if we could unmute them that would be very helpful I am muted you are indeed I just want to compliment you in your pronunciation my name not many people get that right the first time so well done but yeah so I'm a teacher at the high school I guess what I had wanted to say was actually related to some of the said earlier so this isn't a direct response to the question on the table but you know I think there is some discussion of like how can we foster an environment in the schools where students coming from different perspectives feel more comfortable just kind of learning from each other directly and being in space to each other and I think Sierra you brought up some of the very real obstacles to that while I think also you know I think we're all agreeing that that's what we want to see one perspective I just wanted to offer like from my work as a teacher is that I feel like that insight was one that I feel like we were coming to maybe five or six years back in this district and that one of the things I've seen happen in the intervening five or six years is like as our national political climate has as the divisions that were there then have sort of evolved and mutated and I think also as as some like national political strategies that really involve kind of attacking culture war issues specifically in schools have really come to the fore that it's been really hard to kind of navigate when everything has become politicized and I feel like one thing we need to figure out how to do as a community and as specifically as adults and leaders in the community is to kind of reject that partisan lens when we're talking about what we need to do as a school to keep kids safe and feeling valued and I think just like I had this more clearly articulated my head but you know I don't know exactly how to do that but it seems that being really clear that that's the goal and as an institution and I think many institutions in our community have a role to play in this of sort of insisting that when we're talking about you know what do trans kids or kids of color or kids from low income families or any other group of people who we know are going to experience hardships access in their education because of the society we live in we need to have confidence as educators that we can do what in our professional opinion is needed knowing that that's not going to be seen as some sort of inappropriate political maneuvering and so I think I just wanted to name that aspect of the problem of sort of figuring out how to rise above that sort of part you know partisan approach and to really remember that like the purpose of a school is to take any kid who walks in the door and give them the tools to learn as much as they can and be the best version of themselves going forward and yeah how to just center that part of our mission when we're talking about these things that we know are going to be viewed through that political lens thank you thank you now we just separate I'm involved with church youth group and I know that our church youth group has been a forum where children who have had trouble in school have been able to say to their friends that youth group was a small group this happened to me I got the result why didn't you tell us we are your friends so what I would say excuse me what I would say is that we encourage our children to gather a small group of friends when something bad happens they take their friends with them to report what happened so they are not alone in confronting authority thank you you want to open up any other folks would like to share there's a lot to say but not so much sometimes it's hard to say I've been in this community working within the school district for almost 20 years I made a commitment and a couple years ago I bought a house here and I think one thing that I need to see from my community and whether it is my school community or other stakeholders in the community is we as grownups need to commit to our anti bias and anti racism work we need to every staff member in here not just folks in a classroom not just people who opt in and out every business from Gifford to any of our big big employers we need to make a commitment to delve into anti bias work and anti racism work does not have to be tied to an ideology it's about doing the right thing it's about creating a safe environment and we cannot put it on our children to navigate and advocate for these things if we are not stepping up I've been part of community groups with Mia when only three of us showed up so I'm challenging all of us and I've seen a lot of familiar faces here so I know a lot of you have dug in and done the work I'm imploring and begging that you bring three or four other people you know to the next community listening session that we have but more importantly that we admit we are part of a problem too and we have a lot of work to do I benefited from this system I'm a white middle class woman I could have decided tonight not to come here and actually thought about it as I was coming back from a meeting up in Montpelier and I'm like who am I to go back to my house when I'm a minute away from here so please we as stakeholders in this community we need to invest in the work and it only is going to happen if we all are standing up and it's hard but I'm not okay with leaving this on our kids backs thank you the people that agree give you very much there thank you I want to pull some of what I'm hearing together this idea that there shouldn't be an argument about what's right the ability to collaborate across difference is a critical life skill you spoke about employers you cannot work for a credible employer if you cannot collaborate across difference you need to be able to work with people who are not like you respect them appreciate them for their gifts and so as we're thinking about where can we go from here one of those things needs to be to talk very candidly with our children our students about this we don't have enough diversity here we're actually diverse poor we are incredibly lacking it's very hard to have a celebration of diversity here because we have so little so we need to take what we have here and celebrate the diversity we have and teach our students to work together so they're prepared for a global economy because in the world they're going to come across a lot more difference than they're seeing here I would note a lot of people with diverse backgrounds leave here increasing your diverse poor I'll just say that because it's not sustainable I can name three from this community just this one not across the state just this one so if they can't stay here because there's not safety here then you're going to continue this cycle and you're not going to need to prepare your white kids for a global majority world so thank you or our cisgender children or heterosexual children anything else I think that's a wrap I don't know anything else from our friends online or anyone in the room would like to add something before we close out my name is Steph Leonard I work in the school district and I'm going to be with some of the sentiments that were said here I love that we have this in the community but after everything dies down the people that show up are obviously not the ones that need to be here and I would love to see education start at a school age level that's where you need to reach them otherwise it continues to be a multi-generational bias they've done studies in racially diverse schools some people think that kids are color blind if you're all around it you're not going to see it and they've actually found that even in the most racially diverse schools there is inherent racism and the only thing that made a difference was deliberate conversations so we need to start having those conversations with kids from the time that they're young and they have to be pointed and they have to be deliberate they're not just going to happen so I think that within our school systems we need to start having those conversations and they're going to be painful and there's going to be community issues related to that backlash but that's what gets people talking and that's the only way that you're going to deal with these problems and Vogue was wrong freeing your mind and being color blind has not allowed the rest to follow I think something that's important and I think something that I would like to see is people of power not walking a line of I need to please everybody because I think when that happens the change does not happen to have more education about these issues in classes but if the people who can make those changes happen are too scared to say backlash from parents then it's not going to happen so I think something that students need, the community needs to see is the people who have the power using their power to make a change I'm with you Did I see something else? I just had a question about the pyramid examples of the difference some maybe multiple examples of the difference between hate crime and civil rights violations I understand you know damage to property or hurting someone but what are some other examples of that? So a hate crime again you have to have crime it might be an act of violence it might be theft you've heard throughout the state people having black lives matter or pride flags destroyed or stolen or crimes and if they're done because of bias against the person who's victimized you have a hate crime but you have other things that may happen in work where someone is speaking in a way that is racist sexist, transphobic etc those words that under the first amendment are not crimes but under our federal laws we have the right to have an equal opportunity to work and pursue our professions and so there are laws that we enforce US Attorney's Office enforces that will protect people from harassment or based upon you know vicious images or slurs any number of types of harassment that themselves are non-criminal so that's a civil violation you can come to our office if you have that experience at work and we can investigate the employer in Vermont individual harassers are subject to court action not just the employer so that would be one another would be let's say in housing if you live in an apartment building and your neighbor who's harassing you saying terrible things about you or your family and those words are not crimes because they're not threats against your life but they accumulate to deny your chance to have fair housing like everyone else and so at the federal level and the human rights commission at the state level again they have the ability to take your complaint and if your landlord isn't making you safe make the landlord a court and get a court order and get in order to require certain things to happen to make the environment safe and if you've suffered damage which could be property damage it could be the stress you experience some people have to feel like they have to move those moving expenses you can get those in an award in court so those are two examples of civil violations please just I think it's my understanding that I understand the examples you gave however if you were to speak up about something and say people are driving past your house repeatedly late at night laying on their horn or screaming at you repeatedly because you spoke out about something or acting in a you know harassing you in that way Vermont has nothing to help you with that as a like if you're in your house and you experience that from something that you said or did to try to make things better well for that specific example of people are being harassed in their homes because people are you know communicating their hatred at someone who lives in the neighborhood that itself can be a type of housing discrimination and Jules Tordy's office attorney's office has actually taken some housing cases including one more recently that was criminal I don't know if you want to talk about that one at least what you can't talk about yeah so exactly what you described is tricky right because we talk about this pyramid and I use the words like identity a lot like protected characteristics so the law does limit when you're talking about hate crimes or civil rights violation the bad thing that happens usually has to be tied to some part of your identity your sex your gender identity sexual orientation your race your national origin something like that the law does not protect like activist status so if you're saying I'm being targeted because I'm a person who's like a rival browser in my community and I spoke up and I'm getting a lot of harassment that probably wouldn't fall under the frameworks that we have for hate crimes or civil rights violations it's still illegal to be kind of harassed in that way in a under I don't want to speak for state law but in a sort of targeted way so it's just because something isn't a hate crime or isn't a civil rights violation it doesn't mean it's legal there are other laws too they tell me but under the civil rights frameworks no that probably is a gap this is my chance to say the laws are what we say they are laws are passed by human people who are elected and so you know if we think that's a gap in the law advocacy is the route meal this time I'm not scratching my ear the last time I inadvertently made a move in my hand I happen to be sitting in an auction and it cost $10,000 the point was made earlier and it's true that we're kind of talking to the choir here and there are a lot of people that should hear this message and don't want to hear it probably I think the dialogue here tonight has been wonderful quite frankly and I really hope that it gets excellent broad coverage in the local newspaper and any of the other local media it is important for the community to know this went on and what kinds of things are going on it's in the family for just a second this woman over here and I'm not sure what your name is but you're right it's not the kids problem it's our problems and I'm going to bring this up and he'll probably shoot me after I say I'm going to volunteer for one more thing there's a program called Reading to End Racism and it starts with children in the grammar school I have people that I can contact and if anybody in this room is interested or thinks that you know somebody it might be it's a volunteer kind of thing and the schools have to so we would have to get the elementary school here to say yes they would work with it we're in the phone book if you still have one of the old Randolph phone books I'll give it to you it's seven two eight three four seven four if you have people that like to read to kids Stephanie's right we have to start while they're young so if you're interested let me know and I'll get in touch with those folks and we can get something going we went up in Plainfield and we sat in because we thought that we were going to do it at the time and then we started something else but at any rate it was in a grammar school there and the principal came out and it was through grade six every single class brought their kids out and they came in with the youngest first and they went into the cafeteria like this and they sat all around and the principal started out talking very gently to all of them and he said three things that were here for and one of them was so that we can learn new things and the other thing was so that we can make new friends and the third thing was because we all are special and every one of those kids sat in their classrooms and had volunteered each stories to them and the Reading to End Racism group has a mountain of books and I'm sure that in our own library a lot of those books that we can start with but it was just, it was very moving and it was too far away at that point for us to get involved in but thank you. Thank you, Mickey. Yeah, it's never kids that are the problem it's us. I'm Charity Clark from Attorney General and I didn't have time talking but I see we're almost the end of our evening and I just wanted to take a moment to say how much I appreciate everyone who came out tonight and this conversation which has just been so honestly inspiring it was so respectful I learned a lot and those of us who do this work this is almost a relief for us to be going to the community and talk to you all about the work and hear what you're seeing and what you're experiencing your feelings and also your great ideas so this was really a wonderful night for me and I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all of your participation and great comments so thank you. Thanks Charity. We have to wrap it up you know I just have one quick comment before I turn it back over to Aiton for our closing comments and I could agree more that this has been a fruitful conversation and I know it's not easy to come out and talk about such difficult, painful things and hope that this will be the time that something changes for you but we appreciate you coming out today but I'm leaving with a quote that kind of reminds me in each of these sessions I'm literally what people are saying so I have one of my favorite quotes by James Baldwin that really to me reminds me of what I'm hearing tonight we can disagree we love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my impression and denial of my humanity and right to exist we get to be different you can hate whoever you want but what you don't get to do is impede on somebody else's ability to live Aiton? This has been very interesting in most of the fora that we've done thus far we've heard a lot generally from the various government actors who have been participating in this and this form has been really quite different the government actors have been much more subdued for good reason than in other fora that we've done I really think that tells us something I think it says that the answers are what you've all already come up with at least the direction of the answers is alluded to by what you've all come up with and that broadly that can be said to be education and I am heartened and thrilled by hearing that people are talking about anti-racist curricula which are not necessarily ideologically based I would have loved that I came of age as a gay man during the AIDS epidemic I'm that old it was a horrible time there were similar things going on it's just that moment everyone was attacking gay people who were clearly just disease carriers the people who ended up saving me not so much in high school but at a very conservative college we were in fact the educators who got together and sat down and when it's on us we have to teach our students not to do what they're doing and it worked and there are teachers to whom I will forever be grateful so it's wonderful that on various governmental functions are here and are willing to help and able to help in certain circumstances but as they can even say there's only so much they can do what is thrilling to me is hearing the dedication of all of you who are educators to take the burden off of the kids and put it on the people who can actually hold it and who can transform the situation entirely and I I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes thanks Seitan and happy national teacher appreciation week thanks everyone for being here we're going to stay around for a little bit so if folks have anything online or you'd like to interact with any of our folks from the government please stay around otherwise have a great night thank you all