The Corner
Mob Rule in Minnesota: City Council Member Voted to Fire Manager to Avoid Violent Repercussions
Curt Boganey found himself on the wrong side of the mob because he did his job.
Brooklyn Center city manager Curt Boganey was fired Monday evening, just one day after 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer.
Was he fired for failing to prepare his employees for the rioting that rocked the Minneapolis suburb hours after Wright’s death, or for some inflammatory statement about the shooting?
No, he was fired because the mob demanded it.
Per the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
At a virtual council workshop, Council Member Kris Lawrence-Anderson said she voted to remove the city manager because she feared for her property and retaliation by protestors if she had voted to keep him.
“He was doing a great job. I respect him dearly,” she said. “I didn’t want repercussions at a personal level.”
She feared for her property . . .
Boganey found himself on the wrong side of the mob because he did his job. He defended the due-process rights of the police officer who allegedly shot and killed Wright, as was his responsibility as the officer’s direct superior.
Faced Monday afternoon with a room of hostile activists haranguing him to call for the officer’s firing, as Brooklyn Center mayor Mike Elliot had just done from the same podium, Boganey stood his ground, insisting that he reserve judgment until a full investigation had been conducted.
“All employees working for the city of Brooklyn Center are entitled to due process with respect to discipline,” Boganey said. “This employee will receive due process and that’s really all that I can say today.”
Boganey defended the officer’s due-process rights in defiance of the Brooklyn Center residents who ransacked businesses and hurled projectiles at police the night before. The same people who were just given carte blanche by Elliot and the local city council, one member of which was at least willing to be honest about her cowardice.
According to Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon, officer Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran, believed she was firing her Taser, not her handgun, when she shot Wright. If that’s the case, and Potter couldn’t differentiate between the two in a moment of distress, she should certainly be fired, but not before a thorough investigation has been conducted.