MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – The Vermont State Police honored their own Friday during an annual ceremony at the Statehouse. Among them were troopers involved in a dangerous shootout with a fugitive who police say fired at them using automatic weapons.
Video captured by a police body camera captured the moments when three troopers came under heavy gunfire on July 14, 2024.
Police say Brendan Sackal, who was wanted on felony warrants out of Rhode Island, led police and Border Patrol on a more than 60-mile pursuit across New Hampshire and Vermont.
Police boxed Sackal’s vehicle in when he hit and trapped Trooper Richard Berlandy inside his cruiser, while Sackal fired rounds from an automatic-style weapon.
“It was an incident that needed to stop as quickly as it could — it was extremely dangerous. There was a lot of unknowns, and we tried to stop it as safely as we could,” said Vermont State Police Sgt. Joshua Mikkola.
Berlandy and Mikkola exchanged gunfire with Sackal for roughly 20 seconds before he ran out of ammo and surrendered. The troopers then gave first aid to Sackal, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
“We’re here for public safety, so we’ll do everything we can to protect others, and that’s what it took that night to take that operator down,” said Trooper Richard Nash, who was among those in the line of fire.
Berlandy, Mikkola, and Nash were among more than a dozen members of the Vermont State Police recognized for acts of heroism.
“Of course, we never do this to be recognized, but when you go through something traumatic or extreme, getting the old pat on the back and ‘good job’ is appreciated,” Berlandy said. He says he has thought a lot about the incident in the intervening months. “I’m thankful every day since that event to wake up — now married, now have my first child — it really is a life-changing experience.”
A federal grand jury in May indicted Sackal on a slew of new federal charges, including assaulting federal officers with a deadly weapon and possessing an unregistered machine gun. That’s on top of 17 state charges, including attempted aggravated murder.
