MacLean Gander

‘You killed Joe. Enough!’

‘You killed Joe. Enough!’

Two residents of Great River Terrace tell their story

JoAnne Rodriguez Heckman had already contacted The Commons to talk about what it has been like for her and her husband, Benjamin Heckman, to live at Great River Terrace, in one of the small apartments that replaced the old Lamplighter Motel on Putney Road.

They originally talked off the record about the drugs, prostitution, and crime that they witnessed, because they were afraid of retaliation from neighbors in the complex, owned, and operated by the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust.

Read More

Statistics don’t tell the story

‘I came away from doing this project with deep admiration for those who work on the front lines, and deep empathy for those who have suffered the losses of this epidemic. I also came away with a deeper sense of how opioid addiction ravages a community, making people feel unsafe and angry and creating a general sense of disorder and grief.’

I started covering the opioid crisis with my wife Shanta in the winter of 2019. We were working together then as investigative reporters for The Commons, focused on reporting a package of stories on homelessness and housing insecurity. During an interview, Kate O'Connor, then chair of the Selectboard, mentioned...

Read More

Amid disruption from Covid, the opioid epidemic still rages on

Deaths by overdose have exceeded the casualties of COVID-19. With the problems and solutions of opioid use even more complicated by the pandemic, a new police chief in Brattleboro, and heightened awareness to shift focus to substance use as a medical condition, can we find a balance between public health and law enforcement?

Vermont has, by all measures, led the nation in safeguarding its citizens from the coronavirus pandemic, creating a public perception of safety and stability, a reputation of sanctuary from life-threatening danger. Yet, since the coronavirus struck in March 2020, 186 Vermonters have lost their lives from an altogether different...

Read More

More

‘A very, very, very hard time — not just in Brattleboro, but everywhere in the world, of course’

The town's new police chief, Norma Hardy, got her degree at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and worked for more than 20 years in high-stakes urban environments as a public safety official with management responsibilities. She takes over a depleted department in Brattleboro, where only 16 of 27 positions are filled(1) and the police force has had to change the structure of its shifts to manage the shortfall. The first Black woman to run a police department in...

Read More

‘My daughter was really smart’

Carol's daughter was 47 when she died of an overdose in a Burlington motel last January. Her daughter had fought substance abuse disorder and other mental health problems for much of her life, beginning in adolescence. Carol is a pseudonym, and the names in this account have been omitted or withheld to protect the privacy of her grandchildren. Like so many stories about the tragic and untimely deaths of people who came to depend on opiates, it did not start...

Read More

‘My daughter’s urn is here on the table’

My daughter turned 23 on March 12, 2021. On March 14, 2021, we found her in her bed, in my home, dead from an overdose. I had no idea she did anything other than occasional pot. She had a good job - everyone there liked her, supervisors went to her for problem solving, new jobs, training folks, etc. We worked for the same company. She was very smart, funny, loved by everyone who met her, and would give the shirt...

Read More

Tinder makes a hot flame

I am writing, as a white person, to other white people. My Black friends don't need to hear me talking, since they know this all by heart. I want to make that clear. We all know the name of George Floyd now, and that of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who was convicted of murdering him last week. Anyone who knows the United States watched the trial closely, since flames were already kindling in Minneapolis. A verdict that let Chauvin...

Read More

A national dislocation from reality

In his poem “To Elsie,” William Carlos Williams wrote, “The pure products of America/go crazy.” I have thought of that poem a lot lately. Our national unreality over the past several years escalated to a fever pitch between the November election and the most recent impeachment routine, with a hefty dose of an insurrection thrown in on Jan. 6 just to make everything as real as it could possibly be. Nothing that has happened since then has changed that reality...

Read More