BRISTOL — The Bristol selectboard has approved a severance agreement between the town and Bristol police officer George “Randy” Crowe.
Town officials said they could not comment on the details of the agreement or say if Crowe had been fired. At this time it is unclear whether or not he is still employed by the Bristol Police Department.
“Because the matter is still pending under confidential proceedings and nothing has been finalized, we continue to be advised to provide no comment at this time,” said Bristol Town Administrator Valerie Capels in an email to the Independent.
Bristol Police Chief Bruce Nason also declined to comment on the details of the case.
The principal terms of the severance agreement, which was approved at the selectboard’s Nov. 18 meeting, are based upon a Nov. 11 email between Joe Farnham, the attorney representing Capels and Nason, and Sue Edwards, the attorney provided by the New England Police Benevolent Association to represent Crowe.
Crowe had been suspended, with pay, on Oct. 7, pending a hearing to determine whether or not he was “guilty of negligence, dereliction of duty or conduct unbecoming an officer, and if so, determine appropriate discipline,” according to selectboard meeting minutes.
The hearing was eventually held on Nov. 4, but according to that meeting’s minutes, no action was taken afterward.
The Bristol Police Department has had to pay overtime to other officers to make up for Crowe’s absence, said Nason, who anticipated that the department would need to continue doing so until the staffing situation is resolved.
“We have adjusted the schedule to minimize the amount of overtime required to cover open shifts,” he said in an email to the Independent. “We currently have two full-time officers and two part-time officers working together to assure shifts are covered with the least amount of impact to our budget. I cannot thank them enough for their commitment and working together to assure we are meeting the community’s law enforcement needs.”
At the moment, Crowe is also a defendant, along with former Chief Gibbs and the town of Bristol, in a federal lawsuit filed last March by Bristol residents Tyler and Piper Wallace Westbrook, who accused Crowe of, among other things, using excessive force, making an unlawful arrest and committing assault and battery in an incident that occurred at a Bristol business in 2016, according to documents obtained from the U.S. District Court in Vermont.
Reach Christopher Ross at [email protected].