Vermont police charge sheriff candidate for kicking prisoner

Authorities say a fired Vermont deputy sheriff who is the only candidate on the November ballot to become sheriff of the county where he served has been charged with simple assault for kicking a shackled prisoner

A fired Vermont deputy who is the only candidate on the November ballot to become sheriff of the county where he served was charged Friday with simple assault for kicking a shackled prisoner, authorities said.

John Grismore, 49, of Fairfax was cited on the charge Friday through his attorney. He is due in court Monday in St. Albans to answer the charge, said Vermont State Police in a news release.

Surveillance cameras recorded the prisoner being kicked on Aug. 7. In the Aug. 9 primary, Grismore won the nomination of both Franklin County’s Republican and Democratic parties to have his name on the November ballot for sheriff. But after the video became public he was suspended and then fired by outgoing Franklin County Sheriff Roger Langevin.

The county Republican and Democratic parties gave their support to a write-in campaign by Sheriff’s department Lt. Mark Lauer, a 27-year Vermont State Police veteran who has been at the department for nearly a decade. Gale Messier is also running a write-in campaign. He spent decades in law enforcement including 20 years at the sheriff’s department in Chittenden County, Vermont’s most populous county.

Grismore did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday after the state police announced the charge, but he told The Associated Press earlier this month that his actions were taken out of context and he did nothing wrong. He said the prisoner had spit at the deputies and kept standing and was ready to spit again, so Grismore used his foot to keep the man away.

“So knowing what I know, yes, I’ve looked at that, and I would have been like, yeah, that doesn’t look good,” Grismore said earlier this month.

“The bottom line was I was defending myself from being spit upon and defending another deputy from the potential of being spit upon,” Grismore said on Northwest Access Television. “That’s the bottom line and I used the minimum amount of force necessary to affect creating some space and time between him and myself, and a maneuver using my foot to try to keep my face away from his face.”

Early voting is well underway in Vermont, with mail-in ballots already distributed.

Messier said Friday that the the charge was a good thing.

“You can’t be a bully, you’re a police officer," Messier said.

Lauer said Friday he had no comment.

The Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs has said that if Grismore wins and takes office the only mechanism to remove him would be impeachment by the Legislature.