Milton PD to adapt to growing caseload

By NATHAN LAMB | Milton Independent Staff Writer
mireporter@mac.com

Milton Police filed over 5,000 incident reports in 2007, with only one involving criminal charges and a fatality.

That was the shooting death of Milton resident David Jenkins, who was hunting with friends in a local wooded area over the Thanksgiving weekend. Police say Georgia resident Timothy Madden fired the fatal shot, and he was subsequently charged with manslaughter.

The charges were filed because Madden failed to positively identify his target, said district attorney Thomas “T.J.” Donovan after the arraignment in early December. The incident happened just before sunset on Nov. 23, and Madden told investigators he’d mistaken Jenkins for a coyote, according to a police affidavit.

Madden entered a plea of “not guilty” at the arraignment and is due back in court in January. If convicted, he’s facing one to 14 years in prison.

For Milton Police, the two-week investigation that produced the manslaughter charges wrapped up a notably busy stretch for the department, said Chief Brett Van Noordt.

“I would say it was an increasingly difficult year, because these types of cases are becoming much more complex for us to investigate,” he said. “For an example, the hunting incident in November, hundreds of investigative hours go into cases like that—we’ve had a number of embezzlements {and} all drug cases that we do take a huge amount of time.”

However, the department is expecting some new resources in 2008 to help with that workload: laptap computers, which were temporarily installed in cruisers for a trial basis last summer, Van Noordt said they will likely return permanently at some point during the year, thanks to a grant program.
Van Noordt made it clear he’s not calling for extra personnel, but noted that Milton is a growing community and said the department will need to also.
“Eventually, as the town grows, the Police Department will have to grow with it, to keep up with the demands of the citizens,” he said.

Milton Police filed some 5,340 incident reports through mid-December, but just over 10 percent of those calls (543) were requests for an officer to investigate suspicious circumstances.

Other frequently recurring items included: 370 ambulance or medical assists, 325 “assist other agency” calls, and 314 automobile disturbances. There were also 250 animal problems, 194 citizen assists, and 193 juvenile problems.

There were also calls resulting in court dates and arrests; while Van Noordt termed them a small percentage of the whole, he said those were the most time-consuming. Here’s a few of the cases that made headlines in 2007:

Colchester resident Jeffrey Chamberlin, 23, was charged with aggravated assault in September for allegedly slashing an off-duty police detective Jason Nokes in front of his Checkerberry Square home in Milton.

According to police affidavits, Chamberlin was in the midst of a breakup with his girlfriend and had followed her from work to Nokes’ home on Sept. 7. A brief altercation between Chamberlin and Nokes ensued, which left Nokes with a severe slash wound on his hand.

Sources with the Winooski Police said Nokes was protecting the ex-girlfriend, but Chamberlin told police he used the knife in self-defense after Nokes threatened him, struck him in the face and tried to pull him out of the car.

If convicted, Chamberlin is facing up to 15 years in prison. He pleaded “not guilty” at the arraignment and the case appears to be heading toward a spring trial: records at Chittenden Superior Court showed that depositions for the case will be taken through February, with jury selection slated for April.

The following cases are also moving through the courts:

Milton residents Timothy Geraw, Randy Katon, and Jessica Talcott are facing felony charges for a BB vandalism spree that resulted 41 complaints and at least $16,500 of damage across the region in late September.

The group was arrested in early November, after a lengthy investigation by Milton Detective Corporal Paul Locke. He said the group targeted people, vehicles, and houses with a BB gun from Sept, 23-30.

Geraw is facing charges of felony unlawful mischief, aggravated assault, and giving a false report to police. Katon and Talcott were charged as accessories to those crimes.

The false report charge came when the group allegedly tried to throw the investigation off their trail by shooting up their own car and reported the damage to authorities, according to Milton Police.

In August, local man Shane Rathe, 25, was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, for two incidents where he allegedly approached local children and asked them if they wanted to see him do a sex act. Rathe pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.

In January, Christopher Derouchie, then 22, was charged with multiple counts of forgery and one count of exploiting a vulnerable adult. He was accused of stealing checks from an 85-year old woman who hired him to do yard work. He was also charged with double-charging for yard work, for a total of $14,105 in damages.