Saint Paul
Wieners

The formal complaint filed by Chief Axel Henry’s attorney says the mayor “used one or more mobile phones to communicate inappropriate, and, indeed, unlawful text messages.” Attached to the letter is a screenshot of a message about Weiner Wednesday. Officers really do have a Wiener Wednesday — a civilian employee brings hot dogs in for staff. That is where the name comes from. The investigators’ report, released October 1, dates the texts to March 25 and says they went to two officers on personal phones. The mayor does not deny sending them. She told investigators it happened outside work hours and that she never actually attended a Wiener Wednesday.

Happy Weiner Wednesday! Wish I was having a 🌭 with you all on 6 today!

Directly below the Weiner Wednesday text, the complaint includes a meme image with a caption about “a good weinering,” followed by laughing emojis. KARE 11 reported the meme had a police officer’s face photoshopped onto it. The newsroom redacted the officer’s face before publishing. The report says the mayor did not write the caption — it is an existing meme from the content creator Savage Dynasty, posted four days earlier — but that she took the time to photoshop the officer into it. The officers who received it told investigators they were not offended. The report’s verdict anyway: “sexual in nature and inappropriate,” and “it is unacceptable for her to be texting sexual messages to any City employee.”

When she wraps you up in her blanket after you gave her a good weinering 🤣😂

Sources told the Star Tribune the mayor made what they described as performative “orgasmic noises” while stretching in front of others in the Saint Paul Police Department weight room. A second high-ranking officer raised it as part of a claim that the mayor created a sexualized work environment. The mayor regularly used the officers’ gym at police headquarters. The report did not substantiate it. Some officers told investigators they heard noises “that sounded like she was having an orgasm”; others denied hearing them. Investigators reviewed video of the mayor working out at a Fire Department gym and concluded she “does make grunting noises” during demanding workouts, with no evidence the noises were sexual. The chief’s attorney says at least five witnesses heard it, and the allegation is back in the lawsuit.

Women are allowed to make noises in the gym when lifting heavy weights and the mere fact that Mayor Her may have been loud during her exertion does not mean she was doing so in a sexual manner.

A now-retired female deputy chief told her attorney, former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, that the mayor approached her in the police department locker room while she was changing, asked whether her own breasts were too big, and then commented on the deputy chief’s. The two women did not know each other personally. Thompson said the encounter left her uncomfortable and factored into her decision to retire. Finding Six of the report substantiated “offensive and inappropriate behavior with two female City employees.” One conversation, on January 14, was corroborated by a text the employee sent a friend the same day. The other, in the police gym locker room in February, investigators called “more of a close call” but “more likely than not.” The mayor denies discussing her breasts; she told investigators the women were talking about how bodies change with age.

It wasn’t like bawdy humor with a friend you have a very close relationship with.

The mayor allegedly taped her own mayoral portrait over framed photographs of high-ranking police officials hanging in the department’s administrative offices. A source told KSTP she “invaded the offices of police department leadership” to do it. The deputy chief reportedly pushed back on the defacing at the time. The report confirms it: investigators found she placed her headshot over photographs at the department, that someone caught her at it and stopped her from covering one more, and that her claim that officers did not know it was her was “not credible.” She told investigators it was meant as a practical joke.

While it may be true that the Police Department holds “Weiner Wednesdays” and jokes around, it was odd for Mayor Her to come into the Police Department and invade the space with not only her headshot, but also the inappropriately photoshopped pictures.

Over the face of one deputy chief’s portrait, the mayor allegedly posted a promotional image of ten shirtless UFC fighters wearing championship belts — except the faces of real Saint Paul police officers had been superimposed onto their bodies, with Chief Axel Henry in the middle. This is, genuinely, one of the reported allegations. It is now, genuinely, one of the substantiated findings. The report reproduces the original photo next to the doctored one and adds that she also made a bodybuilder version and a boy-band version. The mayor said she was “matching the culture” of the department and that officers told her the pictures were hilarious. Investigators wrote that this “does not excuse the behavior.”

Once again, had a male mayor photoshopped female police officers in such minimal amount of clothing, there would be no question about the inappropriateness of the behavior.

Five days after the two-page summary of the investigation came out, Chief Henry filed suit in Ramsey County District Court against the mayor personally and the City of Saint Paul. Four counts target the city: violating the Data Practices Act, violating the Whistleblower Act, sexual harassment, and reprisal. Two target Her individually: aiding and abetting, and common-law battery. He demands a jury trial, the complete report, and damages “in excess of $50,000” — the phrasing Minnesota court rules require, not a price tag. The mayor’s office points to the investigation, which did not substantiate sexual harassment or retaliation, and says she “will be vigorously defending against the lawsuit claims.”

This case arises from a simple but disturbing sequence of events: Mayor Her sexually harassed St. Paul Police Department (“SPPD”) employees, including Chief Henry; Chief Henry reported that misconduct; rather than protect him or address the misconduct, the Mayor and her administration embarked on a campaign to retaliate against him.

The lawsuit says that during a March 18 police budget meeting the mayor put her hand on Chief Henry’s upper thigh beneath the conference-room table — “not once, but twice” — and that the assistant chief, seated next to him, saw one of them. It is the basis for the battery count. The mayor first told investigators she may have touched his leg but that it was not sexual; at her last interview she could not recall touching it at all. The investigators split the difference.

While the investigation did not substantiate a determination that the touch was sexual in nature, the investigation did substantiate the touch was unwelcome and caused considerable discomfort …

According to the lawsuit, on stage before a police academy graduation the mayor looked at the chief and asked “Why is Tim’s bigger?” When he asked what she meant, she pointed at the ribbon bar on his dress uniform; a deputy chief named Tim was also there in his. Henry took the question as innuendo about his penis. When he explained that the “MFF” on one of his ribbons stood for Mobile Field Force, the lawsuit says, she replied with the line above. The mayor told investigators she may have asked why some bars were bigger but did not mean it sexually, and that she does not recall the MILF remark. The report did not substantiate that any of their conversations “were sexual in nature.”

The lawsuit says the mayor required the chief to meet her at a bar on a Saturday night, repeatedly told him her marriage was in trouble, and said the two of them needed to be “friends” or “this was not going to work.” The report rejects the idea that it was a “date” — her texts told him he could bring other people — and did not find the conversation sexual. But it confirms she asked a subordinate to decide whether they were going to be friends, and notes that she “still believes” he should have to answer. Her account: she wanted a reset after an argument over how police respond to federal immigration operations, and gave him three options — friends, a productive working relationship without liking each other, or he no longer serves as chief.

… the requirement that a subordinate employee tell Mayor Her whether [redacted] will be “friends” with her is inappropriate. However, the investigation did not sustain the contention that this demand for an answer was sexual in nature.

The lawsuit says that while the chief and a sergeant were on vacation time at a golf simulator in Woodbury, the mayor arrived without notice, stayed about 20 minutes, and explained that she “had to come like this because you guys wouldn’t invite me.” Henry says neither of them told her where they would be. The investigators saw it differently: they found the address had been provided to the mayor, and that she and the chief had texted about golf before.

Mayor Her’s surprise appearance at the golf outing may have been unexpected, but there was nothing inappropriate about it.

Henry says he told the city attorney on March 26 that by reporting the mayor he was “jumping out of a plane without a parachute.” The lawsuit alleges what followed: being cut out of personnel decisions, a raise for every member of the command staff except him, a paid media campaign to discredit him, and finally a two-page summary of the investigation that he calls retaliation in itself. The report, which predates the lawsuit, did not substantiate retaliation in either direction — not his claim about the budget and police pensions, and not the mayor’s claim that the department retaliated against her by trying to change her driver.

The City’s summary was not a neutral, good-faith account of its investigative findings. It was retaliation against Chief Henry for reporting Mayor Her’s misconduct and for continuing to press that complaint.

The report includes 18 pages of notes from the mayor’s five interviews. She told investigators the police department welcomed her at first, that officers gave each other the middle finger and commented on each other’s bodies, and that she joked along to fit in. No one, she said, ever told her the pictures were not funny; if they had, she would have apologized and stopped. She traces the falling-out to arguments with the chief in January over the police response to federal immigration operations, and believes the complaint exists because she was “digging into the budget.” She adamantly denied wanting a sexual relationship with the chief, and has apologized publicly “for any discomfort I caused.”

Mayor Her feels that [redacted] has been setting her up. She is concerned that the cop culture is to “not tell the truth.”

The deputy chief described the atmosphere she was leaving as a “creepy and highly-sexualized environment.” The Star Tribune reported the behavior unsettled the veteran law enforcement official enough that she had several conversations with her family about what to do before resigning.

creepy and highly-sexualized environment

A former City Hall staffer told the Pioneer Press that on numerous occasions Her — then herself a City Hall employee — would approach him at public events, grab him by the glutes, and then announce to everyone standing nearby that she had once grabbed him by the glutes.

The report’s closing observation: while the investigation was pending, interactions between the mayor and the chief were “limited, but strained,” each accused the other of retaliation, and the city’s temporary fix was to route them through a go-between. Council Member Molly Coleman’s reading of the report is that “there is not at present a functional relationship between the Mayor and the Police Department.” Council President Rebecca Noecker says she has been assured the two could still talk directly if something urgent required it.

The temporary solution to assign [redacted] as the intermediary between Mayor Her and [redacted] is not a sustainable solution as it does not allow for a free flow of dialogue between these two important City leaders.

Saint Paul police say they have not provided the mayor a driver since September 8. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office says the mayor’s office asked it to take over and that deputies started September 17, with the city covering the cost. The mayor’s office cites the workload on the police department and rising political violence; nobody involved has connected the change to the investigation. The report does say her driver arrangement had been a running dispute with police leadership over overtime. Asked about the switch after a groundbreaking, the mayor took no off-topic questions and left in an SUV driven by a deputy.

Times and needs have evolved, and we need to evolve with them.

The complaint was filed April 1 and an outside law firm was retained the same day. Council members say they learned about both from media reports at the end of July. Ward 4’s Molly Coleman called the lack of transparency “unacceptable” and said the administration should have told the Council before hiring outside counsel. It took until September 30 — one day shy of six months after the complaint letter — for the administration to brief the Council at all, in a closed-door session minutes before asking it to fund the mayor’s legal defense.

The lack of transparency related to this matter to date is unacceptable.

Chief Henry’s attorney has demanded a complete filesystem extraction of the mayor’s mobile devices. Whether the messages went out on a personal phone or a city-issued one could determine how much of this ever becomes public — though Minnesota law still allows access to communications on a private device if they involve government business. In the end, investigators reviewed every text on both: 51,316 messages from her personal phone and 4,285 from her city-issued one. They flagged exactly one exchange, the March 25 meme. The chief’s attorney is still demanding the emails, text messages and exhibits behind the report.

Was this her personal device? Was it a government-issued device? Was she otherwise using it to conduct government business?

The city retained the Resolute Law Firm of St. Cloud on the same day the complaint was filed. The engagement letter sets attorney time at $290 an hour and paralegal time at $180 an hour, with no estimated total — the firm said it would bill the city within 30 days of finishing. Two of its attorneys were assigned, and the letter suggests the city wanted results fast. The report is dated September 14. The final bill, according to the city: $43,933.

The city’s human resources director, Kamaria Kassim, sent the mayor a two-page summary of the investigation, and the mayor’s office released it the next morning. Substantiated: “offensive and inappropriate behavior with City employees,” creating and sharing “offensive material,” and creating “an uncomfortable work environment.” Not substantiated: sexual harassment, retaliation, sexual noises while exercising, and inappropriate texts beyond those with two employees. The mayor must attend workplace-conduct training, hire an executive coach at her own expense, and check in with HR monthly for six months. The chief’s attorney called the summary “a sanitized, self-serving whitewash.”

The substantiated findings reflect conduct that did not meet the City’s expectations and require your immediate attention.

After an hour behind closed doors, the five council members present voted unanimously to hire the law firm Fisher Phillips, at up to $500 an hour and with no publicly disclosed cap, to defend the mayor and the city. State law generally requires the city to defend its employees, and the clock was running: the city’s response to the lawsuit is due October 14, the mayor’s on October 16. The money comes out of the same general fund that is $26 million short. More than 100 public comments came in, all opposed, according to the Pioneer Press. A Hamline University legal studies professor told KSTP the tab could run “comfortably over a million dollars” if the case goes to trial.

We are in a horrible position, and we have very few options.

The day the full report came out, the chief’s attorney said council members who do not demand the mayor’s resignation “condone sexual harassment.” Council President Rebecca Noecker said she was “outraged” by the report but not there: “I’m not calling on the mayor to resign at this point. I think that due process needs to continue.” The Council cannot remove a mayor anyway. Under the city charter, a recall takes a petition signed by 20% of the voters in the last mayoral race, with stated grounds the Council must then find sufficient. Council Member Molly Coleman, asked whether the mayor should resign, said “every option needs to be on the table.”

This is embarrassing, and it makes me angry that we are talking about these locker room details, literally, when we have so many other things to be talking about, to be spending our time on; we’re talking about spending millions of dollars potentially that we do not have, and people deserve better.