Brandon del Pozo

Opioid abuse and dependency have been a concern for the city and its police in light of the state of Vermont's wider struggles with opioid addiction.[18][19] Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger directed del Pozo to create and implement a strategy[20] for addressing its effects that focuses on public health rather than law enforcement[21] and uses data and collaboration as cornerstones of the approach.[22] Shortly after taking on the leadership of the Burlington Police Department, del Pozo began a wide-ranging initiative.[23] He directed all patrol officers to carry Naloxone, the overdose reversal drug,[24] and assisted the mayor's office with the creation of the city's Opioid Policy Coordinator position, as well as staffing his office with analyst with graduate training in epidemiology and biostatistics.[25] Based out of the police department, the two positions vet police work for better public health outcomes and assist the city in formulating policies, directives and public engagements to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with opioid abuse.[26]

Del Pozo has been known to personally meet with and try to help members of the community suffering from addiction,[27] and his insights into the need for swift action and an end to stigma in treating addiction and overdose have gone viral and gained national attention.[28] He has been vocal about the need for all people suffering from opioid addiction to have prompt access to the medications proven to treat it,[29] including prisoners,[30] and he adopted a policy in conjunction with the county prosecutor where his department would not arrest people for unprescribed possession of buprenorphine.[31][32] In early 2020, the city of Philadelphia took the same position towards buprenorphine, citing Burlington's leadership on the issue.[33]

In 2018, as the rest of Vermont saw a 20% increase in opioid overdose deaths, Burlington's county saw a 50% decline in these deaths, to their lowest levels since 2013, when the state began keeping records.[34] The reduction was sustained through the end of 2019.

Del Pozo serves on the board of trustees of the Howard Center, Vermont's largest addiction and mental health service provider.[35]

In the winter of 2016, after a Burlington police officer killed Phil Grenon, a man who attacked the police with knives at the end of a prolonged standoff,[36] del Pozo began a program to improve outcomes in the use of force, piloting the Police Executive Research Forum's (PERF) new force guidelines and curriculum[37][38] and introducing new tactics and technologies that avert physical confrontations.[39] The Reveal, a show syndicated by American Public Media, produced a segment taking a close look at the incident and its aftermath: "When Tasers Fail."[40]

In 2018, del Pozo gave the highest award in the department to an officer who was in the path of a robbery suspect fleeing in a vehicle and would have been justified in opening fire on the vehicle, but chose not to,[41] saying that restraint was a valuable quality in a police officer.[42] He also investigated the Vermont State Police Academy for allegations that officers were needlessly being struck unexpectedly in the head during training scenarios, causing a pattern of concussions.[43] As a result, the academy settled a suit with one of the injured students and ceased delivering unexpected blows to the heads of its recruits.[44]

In November 2019, del Pozo authored an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that when confronting persons in crisis armed with knives, police officers should view their firearms as a means to defend themselves and others from harm, rather than the means by which to persuade the person to drop the knife, often accompanied by yelling orders that only escalate the person in crisis.[45] Instead, he advocated that officers should have a gun at the ready, but engage with distressed suspects as if the officer was unarmed and had to rely on deescalation and persuasion instead.[45]

A few weeks later, his view was echoed by the Washington Post editorial board, which observed that the present protocol "is for officers to advance and draw their guns, repeatedly shout 'Drop the knife!' and hope for compliance. But pointing a gun at a person in crisis tends to increase their anxiety and exacerbate the situation, while advancing toward them may put the officer in unnecessary danger." The Post repeated del Pozo's observation that, in sum, "officers should be trained not to point weapons at potentially suicidal people, to move a safe distance away and continue backing away when possible, and to converse with the person rather than shouting commands."[46] Both opinion pieces were based on a research report by PERF outlining the potential for such innovations in police tactics to prevent shootings and save lives.[47]

An advocate for greater transparency in policing and government, del Pozo created a police data transparency portal where he discloses a range of raw and processed data about the work of the Burlington Police under a quote by legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron: "In a democracy, the accountable agents of the people owe the people an account of what they have been doing, and a refusal to provide this is simple insolence."[48] He has spoken at the Obama White House to an audience of police leaders on the value of the practice as part of efforts to implement the recommendations of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.[49] During his tenure, the police department has made concerted efforts to diversify its rank and file, with moderate success.[50]

In 2005, citing intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 terror attacks, the NYPD selected del Pozo to create and staff its first intelligence liaison post with the Arab world, based out of Amman, Jordan.[51] Embedded with the Jordanian National Police, he responded to suicide bombings at Jordanian hotels planned and executed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and an attack on a Roman amphitheater.[52] He also responded to two attacks in Mumbai, India: a 2006 bombing of seven trains on the city's commuter rail,[53][54] and the 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba-led attack on downtown Mumbai itself, where a team of gunmen attacked hotels, transportation hubs, tourist areas and a Jewish cultural center. Del Pozo reported his analyses back to the NYPD and other agencies,[55] assessing how these attacks could be replicated by exploiting security vulnerabilities in New York City,[56] and what measures could be taken to prevent them.[57] His role was unique in that there was no other US intelligence officer conducting work on behalf of a municipal police department in either region.[58]

In May 2016, the PERF awarded del Pozo its Gary Hayes Memorial Award for his innovation and leadership.[59] He is also an executive fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Police Foundation, a "national, independent non-profit organization dedicated to advancing policing through innovation and science."[60] New York Times editor and book critic Dwight Garner characterized del Pozo as "thoughtful and sane."[61]

He is presently writing a book about police work for Farrar, Straus & Giroux.[15]

Del Pozo resigned as police chief on December 16, 2019, after disclosing that he had used an anonymous Twitter account to direct approximately eight tweets at a critic of the city leadership, for approximately an hour on July 4, before deleting the tweets and the account within the hour.[62] When asked by a reporter about the tweets later that July, del Pozo denied authorship.[63] Five months later, when Del Pozo admitted that he authored the tweets, he resigned. In a statement to The New York Times, he said he wrote eight Tweets "in 45 minutes of my life that I wish I could take back, but they taught me that nothing good ever comes from letting social media criticism get under your skin... It was a real lesson learned during a stressful time in my life."[64] An attorney suing the city complained that del Pozo didn't list the Twitter account in court filings pertaining to an unrelated use of force lawsuit.[65] The federal court judge reviewing the complaint dismissed it, ruling that the attorney violated good faith by making the complaint,[66] and finding "no evidence that the omissions had caused any 'discernable [sic] harm.'"[67]