 Good afternoon, everybody. I am here simply to give some additional information about the arrest last, excuse me, yesterday afternoon of Vaughn Simmons, whom we allege committed the murder of Abu Bakr Sharif at Paisana's Pizza on Sunday morning. The affidavit has been filed with the court, and I think that has the strongest narrative. What we believe happened is this. We believe that there were several people inside the pizzeria that night. Among them were Jervon Montgomery, 25, Abdi Rahman Muhammad, 20, Ibrahim Bangura, 20, Mr. Sharif, and also Mr. Simmons. An altercation began between Jervon Montgomery, Abdi Rahman Muhammad, and Ibrahim Bangura. That altercation was a physical altercation. It was a fight. It moved around within the restaurant. During the fight, it appears that Mr. Sharif was actually attempting to prevent the fight from escalating, move people apart. At some point during the fight, Mr. Simmons, who was not apparently involved in the fight and we do not currently believe was associated with any of the people involved, went behind the restaurant counter, obtained a knife from inside the restaurant, strode forward with that knife, and stabbed Mr. Sharif when his back was turned to Mr. Simmons. He grabbed the jacket, pulled Mr. Sharif around, and put the knife into Mr. Sharif, killing him. The other participants in the altercation then basically split apart and everyone fled the scene. Mr. Simmons was observed on video moving throughout the city, still in possession of the knife at points until he went back to the location where he stays at a new place on North Street. This investigation was a thorough and strong investigation by the women and men in the Burlington Police Department's detective unit, particularly lead investigator, Detective Erica Shaler. Terrific work too by our ID Tech Unit to go through all these pieces and then the entirety of the investigation team with regard to going through a lot of video, witness interviews, interviews with people who are now going to potentially be cited for participation in that fight, but the primary object here was to identify the believed murderer. That was someone we did not have immediate knowledge of. It took time to identify that individual. We were assisted by TIPs from the public. We were assisted by partners in the DMV, former officers of this department who knew the suspect from criminal histories past and we were able to use excellent amounts of video both in the location and throughout the city. They did a lot of really good work to find this suspect and then ultimately make a safe and peaceful apprehension of this suspect as well. To have put a cap on what is horribly our fifth murder of the year to have done it quickly, to have done it safely is commendable and I am incredibly proud of the men and women. I'm also very, very sorry for the family of Mr. Sharif. I offered in a public statement and I offer again condolences to anyone who is bereaved by his passing. With that, that's it. I'll give you, you guys can ask some questions if you want about this case. Because having read through the affidavit and all of that, you mentioned as well Mr. Sharif in his attempts to multiple times listed in here to try and break up this fight. I mean, was this individual in the wrong place at the wrong time? I mean, how do we associate the two groups that were essentially grawling in this case? Mr. Sharif is a long time associate of Mr. Abiraman Muhammad and Mr. Ibrahim Vangora. In the affidavit, it was mentioned that at least two of the people involved in this brawl were red square and prior hours. Is there any way you guys have seen maybe something started there that carried over into Pozzano's later night or is there no connection? We don't currently have an answer for that. I remember asking a little bit earlier this week too in terms of the individuals involved here based on both groups. Any other indication as to whether these individuals have been involved in other violence throughout the city? As you see in the affidavit, their statements are that they didn't, oh, I'm sorry, other indications throughout the city. I thought they knew one another. I apologize for that, Cam. Other violence throughout the city. Mr. Montgomery, 25, has 86 police records. Those include records of arrests for robbery, burglary, domestic assault, lewd and lascivious conduct, and retail theft, among others. Abiraman Muhammad, 20, has 66 police records, including records of arrests for aggravated assault, robberies, multiple simple assaults, sexual assault, vandalism, trespass, and larceny. He was a participant in the three-way gunfight at Simons on July 31st of 2021. Ibrahim Bangura, 20, has 52 police records, including records of arrests for aggravated assault, multiple robberies, DUI, burglary, larceny, disorderly conduct. He too was involved in a previous gunfire incident in the city in which he was pointing a weapon at random strangers on Church Street carrying bar closing and ultimately discharged the weapon at that time as well, although no one was struck. That occurred on August 21st of 2021. So the answer to whether or not these individuals have been involved in prior acts of violence throughout the city is a pretty resounding yes. They've been arrested multiple times for these as well, but they were in this bar, excuse me, in this pizzeria on this night. Do you have any information on Bangura Muhammad who were involved in other gunfire incidents? Why they were involved? Those cases are still ending as I understand. I'm not entirely certain. I think that would have to be taken with the court to determine what the status of those cases are. Do you know, do you have any information on when they were released from detention? I know that they were both present at the scene of the Roosevelt Park shooting this past summer. So they were already out in that point. That was obviously the summer of 2022 as opposed to the summer of 2021 when those gunfire incidents occurred. Do you know if they've been charged with a crime while those gunfire incident cases have been pending? To my knowledge, I don't know that for sure. I don't know. Nobody has been cited yet. No, this I take. So our object in this case was to develop information about who our stabber was. The video had made clear we knew that a single party had been responsible for this murder with regard to the use of the knife. And our object and primary goal was to find out who that was and make an apprehension for that. Now that that has happened, we are going to be issuing citations to the other people that were involved in that for disorderly conduct. That is really probably the extent of what we can offer charges on. Those have not yet been issued. They will be. These are all individuals who live in the city. We will be able to locate them and issue citations, which are minimal kinds of, you know, that's paper that's not in arrest. And just to be super clear on it, that there was a large fight involving people who knew each other, but the man Simmons, as far as you know, did not know or have interactions with those men who was just in the restaurant and chose to join in. As far as we know currently, that is the case. He's older than these others. These others are 25 and 20 and 20. He is 40. He does have a history of criminality within Burlington and Vermont, but not a history that converges with theirs. And currently we believe that somehow he simply became involved. We don't know why. And that's, you know, perhaps be elaborated upon once we get to trial or if others make additional statements. But what we have currently from both participants and witnesses and from the suspect is no clarity on that. There is some suggestion in the affidavit that the fight may have involved a disagreement over another person, a woman who was there. It's not totally clear to me. But, and then there's also a description of a second fight of some kind outside the restaurant. Do you have any other information about why this started or if it was related to the one outside the restaurant? No, we don't. You know, as you said, there's a large age difference, but the men, at least in the affidavit, said that they did know of this man. Of that kind of fun sentence. They knew of him around town. Do you know if it had their relationship with him had anything to do with drugs? No, I don't. I know that his criminal history includes narcotics related investigations, Mr. Simmons. But I do not know that. Considering Simmons was a FAR slash plug earlier, you guys want to say was he intoxicated during the time of the fight? No way to know that. Have you recovered the knife? No, we have not recovered the knife. There are other items that we would be interested in recovering, including clothing associated with our suspect. But currently we have a very strong case based on the work that the men and women inside the detective bureau have done regarding both investigations and interviews. In previous murders and homicide investigations, the department has often said that folks have not been forthcoming with information. That doesn't seem like the case here. Would you say folks were pretty forthcoming, whether it be witnesses or those that were actually involved in the fight? Well, I think you can read the affidavit and sort of understand for yourself that our participants were not all that forthcoming. They made statements eventually, but oftentimes denied being there. One of those individuals was apprehended the night of the incident, was detained, was interviewed, and was absolutely not forthcoming, despite the fact that an acquaintance, a friend, a colleague, somebody with whom he was associated over many years had been murdered. The public did, however, assist us. And some of our ability to identify our suspect came from tips from the public. It's said that Simmons was on federal probation and I didn't get a chance to look on for him, so what that was about, do you know what they were doing? I don't know the answer to that for Mr. Simmons. If it's not in, no, I don't have an answer for that. I'm afraid, I'm sorry. I think the affidavit mentions that Montgomery and Sharif, or Montgomery identifies Sharif as being a friend. Yes. You said that he was a long known, that Sharif was also an associate of Bangor and Muhammad. Yes. Is there any other knowledge as to why Mr. Sharif had been getting involved in this incident? I know, based on the affidavit and what you had mentioned, that it was an attempt to break it up. I mean, it just happened to be there, and I mean, is there any reasoning as to why he might have been involved? My assumption is that he didn't just happen to be there. My assumption is he was probably there with the others, that they were all out together, and he simply wasn't fighting. He was attempting to pull these folks apart. And a question we often ask, too, is what the public should feel about this kind of an incident. I mean, obviously, bar closing time, very busy downtown, lots of folks outside. And all of a sudden, the fight link, this breaks out into some of the ends of staff. I mean, what do you say to the public, and especially the students that are around here at that time, younger population? So this was after bar closing, quite a bit after bar closing, more than an hour after bar closing. And in fact, the rest of downtown was pretty much empty. What caused these folks to still be out and to sort of congregate at the restaurant is unknown. I'll be frank and say that even if this agency were fully staffed, I don't believe that we would have necessarily been out in force at that point. Our evening shift ends at 0245 in the morning because that is enough time for bar closing generally to close. And so officers are on, in days past, when staffing was stronger, it would have meant that a large number of officers were on the corner of church in Maine until about 0230, 0245, which is when the evening shift would go home. You'd be left with the five officers back then that were on the midnight shift as opposed to the one to two that are on it now. But even so, they would be gone by that point. And even when there's a few people still milling about, generally officers do go, what we call 10-8, meaning that they are back in their cruisers and available for patrol. So obviously we were able to respond to this quite quickly. There at the scene, quickly enough to, for example, find Mr. Mohamed, who was still in the vicinity and had not gotten much farther away. But would there have been a huge police presence at a 3.08 in the morning altercation? Probably not. Do you know how long it took between the call and me? I don't have that information with me right now, but it was a matter of minutes. How long did the restaurants stay open? I'm not certain of the answer to that. That would be a question for code, but there's nothing to prohibit their restaurant. We have rules around the service of alcohol, but as you know, the food trucks, the pizza, the Priyas, many of them stay open after bar closing. How long since he's been going through? Long enough to have been known by a member of our department who's a retired member. This department is now with the Department of Motor Vehicles and has experience having arrested him a decade ago. For a while. What have you been seeing in terms of the Vermont State Police troopers signing up to be downtown at night and how frequently has that been? So Cam asked this question, I believe, a couple days ago. We have had a relatively small number of signups. There had been, I think that we allocated upwards of plus $60,000. We spent about four in the month of October. I haven't gotten the bill from November yet, but as I understand it, it was a relatively small number of shifts total that were worked. There are, I just actually spoke to a trooper last night, a former employee of this agency who's a trooper now, ran into him at an event and his statement was that a lot of it had to do with travel time. Just very few troopers live in the immediate area of Burlington and it's just not convenient for them to come here, even though they get paid for travel and they get paid by us. That's been something I've seen online about the notion of whether or not the state should be paying for Burlington to be policed. I think at times that's a belief that it should. For example, when we ask troopers to assist us, for example, with the marathon or providing security for large-scale events that are going to be things that aren't just about Burlington, but are really Vermont events, our Vermont state police partners are there and they are there on the city, excuse me, on the state's dime, as it were. This detail is funded by the city of Burlington. It's an overtime detail. It's a voluntary detail and it is meant for troopers to come here and just augment our police presence in the downtown core. That said, I think that the distance between where most troopers live and Burlington is something of a challenge for them accepting the detail. Can you just help me understand the identification of Simmons a little bit? So that initially came to police through the tip of his nickname and then through the nickname they were able to use that to identify as Bond Simmons or was he recognized by police in the surveillance? It was a little bit of both. I think that there was, you know, there's strong surveillance footage available and that in conjunction with tips that made, you know, that allowed us to get a sense in conjunction also with the fact that much of his path had been documented, not the final termination of that path, but a good portion of the path, you know, all these pieces fit together. And we did leverage, again, assistance from that former member of our department who's now a lieutenant with the DMV. He was a drug surgeon here for a long time with someone who really knew the players, as it were, on the Burlington board. So you touched on it a little bit earlier. This is the fifth homicide and what's been a pretty violent year here in Burlington, but he did once again apprehended violence suspects and have placed charges on them. You can just kind of speak whether it's on the officers or the department, do you guys kind of continue in a timely manner to get these violent criminals kind of behind bars or a rescue? Yeah, I appreciate that question. You know, we have over the past year and it goes into the previous years too, but this year alone of gunfire incidents in which a person was struck, i.e. shootings, we've solved more than 80% of them. Of the homicides that have occurred this year, the five murders that we have experienced suffered. And it's not just us, it's our city, it is our neighbors, it is most importantly the victims and their families who have suffered these horrible crimes. Every single one of them has had a resolution through investigation and through just incredible work. We have an absolutely world-class detective bureau. It is as good as any that I ever saw working in New York City. It is extraordinary the work that they're able to do. They are, I have kept that part of our police department staff in the face of many calls to divert those resources back to patrol, which is technically the core competency of any police agency. And the reason I have pushed back against those calls is because of the incredible work they do and the importance of what they do. And unfortunately in this year, we have seen the need for the work that they do. We have had 25 gunfire incidents this year that is far and away more than any we've ever experienced. Five homicides as near as I can tell is the most the city has ever experienced. Certainly it's the most since 1960 where I can have effective records. My really effective computer records only go back to 2012. And in those years, there were, there've been 15 since 2012. And there are, to have five of those in one year is just extraordinary. Well, the 20% of the 80% of the cases are there. How close are you to processing that up? I would say we're not very close. I would say those others that are, that do involve somebody being struck are nevertheless, we don't have cooperative victims. We don't have much in the way of evidence. What we would call solvability factors are not there. Uncooperative victims is in fact a kind of closure under the detective bureau. And so at some point we will probably close those for lack of a cooperative victim. In other words, somebody who was shot and knows who shot that person, knows who shot him and won't be, it just won't be forthcoming. So you know more? Meaning, I'm sorry, no, we don't know more. We could, we could know more if somebody were to, we could, but what I'm saying is the victim, in two cases that I'm thinking of and the victim himself will not give us any information about what happened to him. What we have is obviously with five homicides, one is a lot, and you've got families and those that know these people and love these people essentially. I mean, for those folks to have closure in all of those incidents so far this year, what does that mean for you and what does that mean for the families that are impacted by these incidents? I know for a fact that the, because of discussions I've had with some family members that the notion of closure is meaningful. How meaningful is it when you're faced with a terrible, terrible loss? I'm hopeful that at some point that's some kind of consolation down the road. I think in the moment it is a part of what they're feeling but it's certainly not the controlling part. Nothing we do here can bring back a lost loved one. All we can do is try to make certain that the person who does it faces justice, appropriate justice, and that hopefully sends a message to prevent these things from happening again. All right, well thank you very much all for being with us today and have a good weekend.