Burlington ramps up outreach rise of incidents at Roosevelt Park

Jess Aloe
Burlington Free Press

A group of “confrontational” youths in one of Vermont’s most densely populated neighborhoods has caused police and community members to worry that a clash will end with a teen getting hurt, documents obtained by the Burlington Free Press show.

In June, a Burlington police officer wrote in court papers that the department had responded to the Old North End’s Roosevelt Park nearly every night in recent weeks. Burlington Police released a list of 43 incidents in the park between mid-April and mid-July, though the details of most records were redacted because they concerned juveniles or a person referred to an alternative justice program.

“We have an ongoing issue with a large group of males that have been in the park,” wrote Officer Cory Campbell, who said he had been assigned to foot patrol the area for several nights because of the “rise of criminal activity.”

Summers always bring an uptick in disorderly behavior in the area around Roosevelt Park, though police say efforts from the community to offer teens jobs and planned activities have diverted several teens delinquent behavior. Many of the youth are from refugee families and are at loose ends during the summer, police said, and can end up under the influence of “instigators.”

Burlington Police Officer DiFranco, right, and Boys & Girls Club Counselor Bienfait Badibanga play with kids at Roosevelt Park in the Old North End on Tuesday. Along with community policing, Badibanga’s job is to hang out at the park and make sure kids are staying out of trouble.

In an email to the Fire Department urging them to utilize a police escort while responding to the area, Deputy Chief Shawn Burke described “the Riverside Gang” — a name police said the group of kids ranging from ages 13 to 19 gave themselves — as “very confrontational with the police.”

Chief Brandon del Pozo said the police use the name as a shorthand and don’t police the teens differently.

“We are not building conspiracy cases,” del Pozo said.

Del Pozo said he was concerned about “needless escalation on the part of youth who bond with each other by confronting authority.”

He added that the community needs to become involved.

“The community should take note that it has youth who refer to themselves as gang members,” del Pozo said in early August.. “There is a sense of wanting to belong to something at work here, but if left unchecked it will lead to conduct that has real and damaging consequences, such as assaults, robberies and drug dealing.”

In the June affadavit, Officer Campbell describes how a young man, Steven Tran, yelled obscenities at him in Roosevelt Park. Tran also “puffed up his chest and clinched his fist,” Campbell wrote, which Campbell believed to be “pre assault cues.”

Tran was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He declined multiple Free Press requests for an interview, other than sending grinning emoji in response to one attempt to contact him via Facebook.

Center, Mahdi Haji, 8, grabs lunch at Roosevelt Park across from the Boys & Girls Club in the Old North End in Burlington on Friday. Left, his older brother Haji, 17 — a councilor for a city summer day camp program — joins him as dozens of kids lined up for burgers and hot dogs.

Cpl. Brian DiFranco, who reaches out to area youth as part of his job as the school resource officer, identified Tran as one of the group’s instigators.

Other officers, Campbell wrote in the affadavit, had previously reported a group of unruly young men in the Roosevelt Park area shouting obscenities and showing them the middle finger.

“There have been multiple assaults, complaints from nearby residents, and complaints from the Boys and Girls Club,” Campbell wrote.

A photo posted to Steven Tran’s Facebook page shows him standing on a rock bearing the graffiti "kill cops." Police recently expressed concern over a group of kids calling themselves the "Riverside Ave. Gang", saying that they've caused trouble in the Old North End and have even confronted officers.

Mary Alice Mackenzie, who has led the Boys and Girls Club for the past decade, agreed that these are kids looking for an identity. The problem is ongoing, she said.

“It’s not gotten steadily worse, it’s not gotten steadily better,” she said. What makes this year different from previous years is how young the teens involved are.

“They’re young enough to do really good interventions,” she said. She called the “Riverside Gang” a negative influence on the younger kids, but spoke highly of the community’s efforts to exert a positive influence as well.

On a warm Friday afternoon in early August, the park was full of young people, crowding around a cook flipping hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill set up behind a van by the City of Burlington in partnership with the Burlington School District.

Haji Haji, who will be a Burlington High School senior next fall, brought a group of kids over from the Riverside Apartments.

He is working for the city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront this summer. He said the programs give kids something to do and keeps them out of trouble.

“When the kids are here, they’re under our supervision, they’re playing basketball and stuff. They’re not out doing some crazy stuff like other kids in this neighborhood,” he said.

The camps helped keep him out of trouble when he was younger, he said.

The Boys and Girls Club has dedicated adults to the park all summer, Mackenzie said, and she spoke highly of the Parks and Rec program.

“These things really matter,” she said. “They send a message to kids that ‘Hey, you matter to us.’”

Pat Teave with the Burlington High School hands out cheeseburgers and hot dogs to kids at Roosevelt Park across from the Boys & Girls Club in the Old North End in Burlington on Aug. 4. Most of the kids at the park participate in club or city summer camps or other programs.

Meanwhile, the police are also trying to reach out to the kids. DiFranco, Burlington’s school resource officer, has been working to open channels of communication, del Pozo said.

DiFranco said the efforts of the city and police to engage have been paying off — the numbers of youth who are causing problems has “dwindled.”

“Probably five kids are left who are instigators,” he said. He said many of the youth have decided to change their nickname to “Riverside Brotherhood” versus the “Riverside Gang,” recently.

He has also taken area officers to the park and introduced them to the teens and children who hang out there — once they know each other’s names, he said, the aggressiveness and confrontations often diminish.

“It’s all community policing, you’ve got to know the kids,” he said.

He said he also makes efforts to speak with the parents of youth involved in troubling behavior, though the language barrier can be an issue.

The State’s Attorney’s office has instituted “flash citing,” so youth who are cited will appear in court immediately, rather than in 30 days. That helps make the consequences more real for young people, DiFranco said.

While some young people won’t respond to their efforts, he said, it’s good to keep vulnerable youth, who often have parents who work a lot or don’t speak perfect English, away from the bad influences.

Community members held a meeting in June to discuss the problem and figure out how to keep youth away from the criminal justice system, DiFranco said.

Many of the young people involved in the “gang” asked something simple from the neighborhood, he said: for neighbors to say hello.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe