Sobel had just left a DCF office on Friday afternoon when she was shot twice, authorities said.
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“This is someone simply doing a very, very hard job”, Mayor Thom Lauzon said.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims’ families and friends.
The case took a possible darker twist this morning when three relatives of Herring’s were discovered dead in a farmhouse 12 miles from Barre City, the Free Press reports.
The state is planning to assess security at all of its state offices.
She will be arraigned on Monday, police said.
The shooting was a few hundred yards from the courthouse in Barre.
“As best as I can tell there were no Family Court hearings today”, said Grearson, who had also talked with a court worker.
Sobel was a 14-year veteran of the agency and is survived by a husband and two daughters, according to the Free Press.
The DCF worker’s shooting happened on the last day of work for state police director Col. Tom L’Esperance, the Free Press reported. According to state officials, the incident is in connection with the employee’s work for DCF.
“The initial reports are horrific” and break his heart, he said. I’ve asked the Department of Human Resources to immediately make available crisis and grief counseling services to state employees affected by this incident.
In a statement, Shumlin said there is no indication of a continuing threat, but the state is taking extra precautions for now.
Shumlin said DCF employees deal with challenging family situations and do their work ‘out of their dedication to the children and families of this great state.’.
As a result, lawmakers passed a new child-safety law that shifts the state’s priority in protecting children, focusing on their well-being instead of on an imperative to reunite them with their families.
He added, “To lose one of our own in the course of that duty is shocking and heartbreaking”.
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Vermont governor Peter Shumlin ordered staffers at the Department for Children and Families, where Sobel worked, to be accompanied by police on emergency calls over the weekend.
