LEBANON – A traffic stop on Saturday evening of a Montpelier, Vt., woman parked in the middle of Mechanic Street escalated into her resisting arrest and attempting to disarm an officer.
Sheila Healy, 39, is facing felony and misdemeanor charges including attempting to take a firearm from an officer, resisting arrest, simple assault, criminal threatening and reckless operation.
Preceding the incident on Mechanic Street, the Hartford Police Department advised Lebanon Police to be on the lookout for a white Mazda which had been speeding 60 mph in a 30 mph zone with its hazard lights flashing and disregarding red lights before crossing into West Lebanon via Bridge Street, according to the affidavit in support of the charges.
At around 6:13 p.m., Lebanon police received multiple calls concerning a white Mazda stopped in the middle of Mechanic Street near Slayton Hill, hazard lights activated. “The operator was extending her middle finger out of the window … and was yelling about having a sniper rifle pointed at her,” the affidavit states.
When multiple people stuck in the traffic obstruction attempted to assist, the operator of the vehicle, identified by police as Healy, threatened them with being shot if they approached.
Several Lebanon Police officer subsequently responded to the scene. As Corporal Dean Bullock exited his cruiser, Healy stepped out of the Mazda with a gas can, requesting help in opening it.
Cpl. Bullock asked if she had anything else on her person and she retreated back into the vehicle, disobeying Bullock’s orders not to do so.
Other officers assisted Bullock in removing Healy from the vehicle and she began “she began screaming at the top of her lungs. “I am not under arrest,” she declared to officers.
“Yes, you are,” Officer Stephen Nix responded.
Resisting handcuffs, she screamed, “I’ve never done anything wrong. Please God, Senator Sanders, help.”
According to filings in Lebanon District Court, she lists her employer as Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and place of employment as his Burlington office.
“Sheila Healy is a former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer and has not had any formal role or voluntary role since the end of the 2020 Presidential Campaign,” Patrick Barham, spokesperson for Senator Sanders, said in an email to the Valley News on Tuesday. “She is not associated with and does not represent the Friends of Bernie Sanders campaign or the Senate office.”
In the struggle to secure Healy in the cruiser, Bullock then observed “(Healy) push her body into (Officer Eric Blaine), in the direction of his gun belt, and reach out with both hands in an attempt to grab his firearm.”
“She continued to pull upward on the firearm multiple times,” the affidavit alleges.
Two officers then pushed her into a cruiser so that Bullock could “apply pressure to her arms and compel her to release the firearm.”
After she was transported to the Lebanon Police station on Poverty Lane, officers searched the vehicle and did not find any firearms.
Healy is currently being held in Grafton County Jail. The originally scheduled arraignment in Lebanon District Court on Monday was rescheduled to Tuesday afternoon after a judge approved Healy’s request for counsel, appointing the Grafton County Public Defender’s Office in Orford.
Voicemails left for the Orford office and Lebanon Police Chief Phillip Roberts were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
