The three Hartford police officers sent to Bob Little Tree’s home on a late June afternoon were well aware the 75-year-old had done nothing wrong.
So how was it that within 10 minutes of the cops’ arrival, Little Tree found himself in handcuffs? And how did he end up in the back of a Hartford police cruiser driven — still handcuffed — across town against his will?
It’s called protective custody.
But the way cops handle conflicts — in spite of their best intentions — can at times lead to more harm than good.
This was one of those times.
On June 23, police went to Little Tree’s apartment off Route 14 in West Hartford to conduct a “welfare check.” Police had received a call from a financial counselor at a Windsor County nonprofit who was worried that Little Tree might be having suicidal thoughts.
But before I get more into what happened that afternoon, here’s some background:
Little Tree, who is Native American, was born Robert Butler. He legally changed his name a while ago to honor his heritage. His ancestors hailed from the Paugussett tribe that goes back centuries in Connecticut.
Little Tree receives a monthly Social Security check, but as he put it, “there’s no way you can live off just Social Security.” To make ends meet, he works as a school bus driver and a gardener.
As it was, Little Tree was barely getting by when he learned this spring that starting in June the landlord planned to raise the rent on his one-bedroom apartment a couple hundred bucks a month from the $1,150 he’d been paying.
Little Tree has lived in the apartment for five years. It looks out onto a big yard, part of which Little Tree has made into a robust flower and vegetable garden. This summer, he’s growing, among other things, “lots of spinach, a little bit of lettuce and hopefully, turnips.”
Through the nonprofit Southeastern Vermont Community Action, better known as SEVCA, Little Tree applied for rental assistance. The paperwork was overwhelming and frustrating at times. A SEVCA financial counselor was “able to coach me through it and calm me down,” Little Tree said.
But more than two months after starting the application process, Little Tree still didn’t know if he’d been accepted into the program. And he was already late on his June rent payment.
Little Tree’s frustration boiled over during a June 23 phone conversation with his SEVCA counselor who called Hartford police. “It’s OK that he called,” Little Tree said. “He’s a person who really cares about me.”
At 4:30 that afternoon, a police dispatcher reached Little Tree at home and asked him to step outside to meet with the officers.
After Little Tree opened the front door, Cpl. Mitchel Cable explained the reason for the visit. “Little Tree advised that he was not suicidal and was working with (SEVCA) to get his rent figured out,” Cable wrote in his report.
Little Tree stayed on his porch while the officers stood at the bottom of the steps and the driveway. “At one point, he stated that he did not plan to kill himself today but that several days from now would be a different story,” Cpl. Aleya Leombruno wrote in her report.
“I explained to (Little Tree) that based on what he was telling us he had to go to the hospital,” Cable wrote. “Little Tree refused and advised that he was not going to go.”
Little Tree turned to go back inside his apartment. As he reached for the door, two officers grabbed his arms. He tried to wriggle free, which the cops didn’t appreciate. “He was non-compliantly handcuffed behind his back,” Cable wrote.
Little Tree, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, was brought to the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, where he underwent a battery of medical tests. Little Tree shared the hospital report with me that also said he was “cleared by psychiatry.”
A VA worker drove Little Tree home that evening.
I read on the Hartford website that the town has an “embedded” police social worker who is part of an effort to improve the department’s “response to persons in crisis.”
The police social worker was away at a training session on the day the three cops were sent to Little Tree’s home, Acting Police Chief Constance Kelley told me.
Last week, I watched the video recorded on the officers’ body cameras. They treated Little Tree with respect but seemed impatient at times.
When Little Tree complained the handcuffs were cutting his wrists, an officer agreed to “fix them.” But it came with a warning.
“Are you going to resist again?” the officer asked. “Don’t do anything stupid, OK?”
It’s been more than two weeks since Little Tree’s encounter with Hartford police. How’s he doing?
“I have nightmares about this,” he told me. “You don’t treat someone like this, if you’re concerned about their welfare.”
Last week, I contacted Ken Libertoff, who is a wealth of knowledge about Vermont’s mental health system. Now retired, Libertoff headed the nonprofit Vermont Association for Mental Health and Addiction Recovery for 30 years.
In tense encounters, de-escalation is crucial, Libertoff said. People in crisis must be listened to and given time and space to process what’s happening. Uniformed cops with handguns strapped to their waists are hardly a calming influence.
Libertoff reminded me that police are often asked to do jobs they didn’t sign up for. Like many states, Vermont hasn’t invested sufficiently to hire mental health clinicians to handle a growing workload.
The Hartford case “illustrates that we have a continuing crisis in mental health care,” Libertoff said.
On the police video, a Hartford officer tried to reassure Little Tree that he wasn’t under arrest.
“It certainly feels like it,” responded Little Tree, his wrists still locked together by handcuffs.
Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.
