Shamrock shakedown: Police trade treats for tips

“We have a winner! Shamrock Shakes are a truly powerful incentive,” read the department’s post on the evening of March 18. “Kasey Ainsworth was taken into custody on two outstanding warrants without incident. Josh Simpson was also arrested on a warrant at the same time. Stay tuned for our next challenge. We’re thinking three steamed lobsters.”

Just a day later, someone who saw the next Facebook “challenge” helped police find another person, Wendell Walbridge, with a warrant out for his arrest. And, yes, the tipster did get their lobster, according to Lt. Det. Todd Baxter, who thought up the irreverent and viral reward system.

Baxter said the idea came to him on March 15, when he and other officers had grown frustrated searching for a wanted man, Russell Luce of Hardwick, who had managed to elude police for weeks — officers from multiple agencies, including a dog and a drone pilot, were tied up fruitlessly for hours on Feb. 27 looking for Luce in the woods off Route 15 in Wolcott.

Baxter decided to post a small cash reward — $50-$500 he said — on the department Facebook page and see if that helped.

“We immediately got information,” he said. “It took us four hours to actually capture him, but we did, after negotiating with him for 20 minutes at the house where was at.”

Social experiment

Nine Shamrock Shakes and three lobsters later, the response was so quick and effective that Baxter had to pump the brakes a bit and will, going forward, limit the reward posts to once a week, probably on Wednesdays. This Wednesday, shortly after press deadline, the department posted a reward of a gasoline — a very specific $62.39 — and a shiny sticker that reads "Junior Police Officer" — and, within hours, made an arrest.

There are certainly plenty of opportunities; the department has a list of more than 50 people with warrants out for their arrest.

As an ancillary benefit to the social media outreach, the posts went so viral that the Morristown Police Department Facebook page added a significant number of new followers. Baxter said that could come in handy if the department needs to get the word out about a public safety concern or seek help finding a missing person.

He said local businesses have offered to provide the rewards — an anonymous donor paid for the lobsters — and he already has a handful of future rewards queued up.

Moderating the posts can take up some time, and Baxter said he’s had to delete some comments. He also removed photos of the wanted suspects after they were arrested and, in the case Walbridge, nuked the entire post after it got out of hand.

Lamoille County State’s Attorney Aliena Gerhard said she didn’t have any idea Morristown police had come up with this reward challenge until she saw it on Facebook. She said she sees no problem with the practice if people in the community know there’s a difference between providing tips to police and taking matters into their own hands.

“As long as everyone is safe and understands what they’re legally allowed to do and what they’re not legally allowed to do, it is seeming to be very effective,” Gerhard said.

Indeed, the Facebook posts — both those that have been deleted and those that remain up — include disclaimers cautioning against taking the law into one’s hands. It was a similar line Baxter toed at the police department-hosted community crime forums last summer and in January, urging people to come forward with information without resorting to vigilantism.

“Do not put yourself, your family, friends, or pets in danger. Please provide the information and let us do the work,” the disclaimers read, adding, “Also, please folks, keep the comments respectful.”

Baxter said people did stay out of the way and just provided tips and, for the most part, abided by that last bit. He said he had to delete some mean-spirited posts, but most of the comments that remained were ones expressing gratitude for the police and a measure of enthusiasm for the participatory nature of the experiment.

“When a community comes together to work on an ongoing problem, there is no downside,” Chris Rogers, a Stowe police officer, wrote. “I am so glad to see people helping to make our community a safer place. Let’s keep going as a group, saying we no longer tolerate what has been going on.”

Another commentator wrote about the appeal to the reward, saying, “I’d hope the people I associate with wouldn’t sell me out for a lobster. A shamrock shake I can see. They’re only around for a limited time. I’d understand.”

Some people did frown upon what they saw as a jokey vibe to the thing, reminding folks that the subjects of these bounties were sometimes struggling with their own issues.

“It’s all fun and games until it’s someone you know,” wrote one person on the since-deleted post about Walbridge. “I pray he’s found, has consequences, and gets help.”

Wrote another, “I still disagree with the fact that the police department is making a game out of it with these posts vs doing their jobs figuring out where these guys are.”

Chandler Matson, a Stowe attorney who has made a career of defending people who were seemingly guilty on arrival — he made a splash a decade ago by successfully defending a man who had been seen by numerous witnesses crushing several police cars with a tractor — said he doesn’t see anything overtly wrong with the rewards.

While he is a staunch believer in the idea of innocence until proven guilty, Matson said that, in the case of people with warrants out for their arrest, a judge or magistrate has already ruled that there is probable cause for prosecutors to pursue criminal charges.

“While the practice doesn’t paint our society in the most flattering hue, the offering of police rewards is as old as time, albeit, perhaps, a better time,” Matson said.

A torrent of warrants

Gerhard noted that, while Morristown is dealing with a 55-person list of people with warrants out for their arrest, there were, as of Tuesday, 250 active arrest warrants overall on the Lamoille County court docket.

She said people in the executive and judicial branches of government are frustrated with repeat offenders and cite-and-release practices, noting that even judges tell her they’re inclined to want to hold more people for lack of bail or clamp down on repeat offenders, but are bound by statute.

It’s the legislative branch that is bearing the brunt of the angst, although Gerhard noted lawmakers are listening and there are bills afoot to stiffen penalties on things like repeat retail thefts and violations of court orders.

“I know there’s frustration that our community members have expressed to us, and what we hear is the lack of legislation to protect them from repeat offenders and the lack of courts’ ability to do what they need to do to keep our community safe,” she said.

Matson said, as a defense lawyer, he is also bullish on getting defendants into court. He said the idea of probable cause is a “safeguard against unilateral police conduct,” but once that safeguard has been met, the defendants need to appear for their court proceedings, especially with such a large backlog in Vermont’s courts.

“There’s a risk of grinding our criminal justice system to a halt, because now the backlog is simply getting bigger,” Matson said. “The first step in due process, for all of us, is actually moving these cases forward.”

Baxter said it’s a matter of people participating in civic society. He said the community members are doing their part to inform police of bad acts, and people with warrants out for their arrest are always welcome to turn themselves in. He said respect goes both ways.

I there’s a reward out there, the wanted person could just claim it for themselves.

“How could you possibly be a productive member of our community while you have a warrant?” Baxter said. “Nobody is holding this certain group of people who are unwilling to participate accountable.”

Updated Thursday, March 28 to include the latest arrest made after press deadline.