Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said Wednesday she will not bring charges against six people arrested during a federal immigration raid in South Burlington, a decision that drew sharp condemnation from Vermont and local law enforcement leaders. In a statement, George said her office evaluated where harm occurred and who contributed to it before deciding not to prosecute, arguing that charging decisions should take account of the broader impact of the events.
George’s decision came after a daylong U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation on March 11 at a Dorset Street house, when police and protesters clashed, according to the statement. ICE detained three people inside the house, and federal judges later released those detained, while the raid was found to have been triggered by a case of mistaken identity.
By the end of the standoff, six protesters were arrested—three by Vermont State Police and three by Burlington police—amid heightened tension on both sides, the statement said. Police cited offenses including disorderly conduct and assault on a law enforcement officer.
In her statement, George said she believes prosecution should be “in part, to heal harm caused by the person being charged,” and she said she declined to pursue the case because it would require charging protesters who have no criminal records with responsibility for all the harm caused that day. She also said she is confident that some protesters acted in ways that went “beyond civil disobedience into unacceptable and perhaps criminal behavior,” including the three people Burlington police cited, while also saying she is confident that some law enforcement officials “who agitated, who escalated, and who responded in a way that may be ultimately deemed legal, but was also unacceptable.”
George referred the three Burlington cases to the Burlington Community Justice Center, which uses restorative justice practices for precharge referrals rather than sending cases to the court system. Shawn Burke, the interim Burlington Police chief, said in an email Wednesday that the Burlington Police Department will not participate in the restorative process, and he said engaging in physical confrontations with law enforcement in the street is not protected speech or expressive conduct under the First Amendment.
The response from state and local law enforcement leaders was swift and critical. Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison and Vermont State Police Director Col. Matthew T. Birmingham said they took offense at what they described as the suggestion that state and local enforcement bore equal responsibility with protesters for criminal behavior during the Dorset Street incident, calling George’s decision a “disheartening decision that sets a dangerous precedent.”
They said the decision likely would embolden people in Chittenden County to cross the line into criminal behavior in future demonstrations, placing the public and law enforcement at greater risk of harm. In a separate statement, Burke said the department acknowledged the harm the ICE incident caused in the community but called for the rule of law to be upheld.
George pushed back against what she described as narratives broadly casting protesters as agitators and law enforcement as protectors, and she compared the dispute to earlier civil rights-era fights in which activists were labeled as troublemakers. She said there was a time when figures such as Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, John Lewis, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer were considered agitators, arrested and, in some cases, prosecuted, and described how they were “painted as enemies of the State and criminals for standing up for civil rights in a way that was unpopular,” adding, “We must do better here.”
George also called for an independent review of the law enforcement response during the ICE raid, saying immigration and social justice advocates have alleged police actions violated Vermont’s policy on fair and impartial policing. State and South Burlington police said their actions were appropriate, and they are completing their review; public testimony at the Vermont Statehouse and before the Burlington City Council included accounts from protesters of being choked, pepper-sprayed and dragged by state and local police.
George said her office could not present findings about whether law enforcement violated any laws in an investigation conducted by the agencies whose conduct was questioned. Morrison and Birmingham responded that calling into question law enforcement’s ability to conduct fair and thorough investigations undermines the cases the state’s attorney’s office relies on day to day when prosecuting charges.
The case also sits within George’s political timeline. She is seeking her third full term in the 2026 election, after being first appointed by Gov. Phil Scott in 2017, and she has previously faced criticism from some opponents for policies they said reduced cash bail and expanded restorative justice, and for other decisions they characterized as too soft on crime.