Pastor backs law to limit public taping
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By DANIEL BARLOW Herald Staff - Published: November 21, 2006
BRATTLEBORO — The pastor of the Agape Christian Fellowship church is asking state legislators to pass a law that would restrict continual public videotaping in an effort to stop a local man who has riled a neighborhood with his amateur surveillance.
The Rev. Michael Gantt, senior pastor at the church, appealed to the Brattleboro Select Board in a letter this month to join his effort to ban Paul Canon's surveillance along Clark Street in Brattleboro.
In the two-page letter dated Nov. 2, Gantt suggests that Canon's videotaping likely contributed to the suicide of Tina Fiorillo, who lived on Clark Street.
Gantt wrote that residents of the neighborhood have a right to privacy.
"While Paul Canon has a legal right to make videotapes, I shudder at the enormity of the cost of his expression of that right and I cannot conceive that those who framed our remarkable Constitution and Bill of Rights ever imagined a day when the freedom of expression of one citizen would be allowed to strip away the rights of another," he wrote.
Canon said Monday he doubted legislators could pass a law that would make his videotaping illegal. He said he wouldn't stop even if the law was passed.
"It ain't going to stop me," he said. "I'm not going to stop videotaping until they stop messing with my house."
Canon said his home has been vandalized several times in recent months.
Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, said he is working with the Vermont Legislative Council to draft language for a bill that would ban continuous public videotaping.
Sears, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it's not yet clear if the law would make the taping a criminal act or a civil matter.
"We're looking at a number of things, including what laws are on the books now and what the (U.S.) Constitution says," Sears said. "As part of this, we're also taking a look at the stalking laws, and it may head in that direction."
Canon's habit of videotaping what he perceives to be drug dealers and other alleged crimes along Clark Street boiled into a full-blown neighborhood dispute this summer.
Canon has given tapes to the Brattleboro Police, but no crime has been prosecuted from his surveillance.
Residents of Clark Street, a low-to-moderate income neighborhood that is known to be ethnically and culturally diverse, say Canon's videotaping is intimidating, a violation of their privacy and amounts to harassment.
But police officials and Windham County State's Attorney Dan Davis have said none of Canon's behavior has been illegal. He videotapes from his own house, officials said, and can't be prosecuted under the state's harassment or stalking laws.
An emotional community meeting at Gantt's church, which is located around the corner from Clark Street, was attended by town and police officials this summer and led Canon to temporarily stop videotaping.
It also revealed a fractured relationship between the neighborhood and police.
"The highly charged meeting of the community in July and the recent suicide of Tina Fiorillo high-lights the perilous dynamic that is present in this troubled neighborhood," Gantt wrote in his letter to town officials this month.
Fiorillo's suicide on Oct. 17 rocked the small community. While there has been no direct link between her suicide and Canon's videotaping, the 32-year-old woman did contact local police and town officials in the hours and days before her death urging them to stop Canon.
Police Chief John Martin said Monday that an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Fiorillo's death is in its final stages. He expects the investigation to be finished soon, but could not discuss details.
"We still have one more person we want to interview," Martin said. "So right now it's still an open case."
Brattleboro Select Board Chairman Steve Steidle said the town wants to do all it can help the Clark Street community, but that it would need more information before signing on to an initiative to change state law. The board is scheduled to discuss the issue at its meeting at 6:15 tonight.
"I'm no legal expert, but it seems there are some constitutional questions that have to be answered before some changes can be made," he said.
Sears said he is conscious of that as he prepares draft language. Public videotaping has its benefits too, he said, such as the Burlington store surveillance footage that led police to arrest a construction worker in the death of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, a 21-year-old University of Vermont student.
Rep. Daryl Pillsbury, I-Brattleboro, agreed Monday that whatever law is proposed would have to be carefully worded as to not violate peoples' rights.
At the community meeting in July, Pillsbury vowed to pass a law stopping public videotaping, but now says that is not the right approach.
"That was way too close to being a Constitutional issue," Pillsbury said. "But we do have a problem here. We can't get this guy to stop and he is infringing on the rights of the people living in that neighborhood."
Contact Daniel Barlow at daniel.barlow@rutlandherald.com.
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