The Associated Press
Minneapolis (AP) -- Minneapolis Police Chief William McManus apologized for comments he made in a state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension report released last week following his controversial suspension of three top officers,
“While I certainly did not say all of the things that have been attributed to me, I recognize that members of my command staff have been negatively affected by the things I did say,” McManus said in a memo to the Minneapolis City Council on Wednesday. “I regret that, and I apologize.”
McManus continued to blame the department’s political culture for a lack of progress in resolving the shooting of officer Duy Ngo last year. Duy Ngo was shot first by an unknown attacker and later by a fellow officer who mistook Ngo for a suspect.
The chief plans an internal investigation into how his department handled the shooting inquiry.
McManus also told the City Council he wants a city personnel department review of what he called “unsubstantiated comments and inferences of inappropriate conduct by some of my command staff and me.”
Wednesday’s developments were the latest installment in the saga of the new chief, who was sworn in Feb. 17 and whose short tenure has been marked by fallout from the suspensions.
The BCA report revealed examples of divisive departmental politics, including that McManus threatened to “take out” two of three top officers suspended by him on Feb. 26 when he requested the BCA investigation. One of them was Deputy Chief Lucy Gerold, a finalist for the chief job.
A review of the BCA report by the Bloomington city attorney’s office concluded that the new chief’s concerns that a memo documenting the mishandling of the investigation into the Duy Ngo shooting last year might have been ordered destroyed were the result of an “unfortunate misunderstanding.”
The three suspended officers -- Gerold, Lt. Mike Carlson, the memo’s author, and Carlson’s boss, Capt. Mike Martin -- returned to work Monday. The three would not comment Wednesday about McManus’ apology.
“If this guy truly felt an apology was in order, he would have done it last Friday,” said Jim Michels, who represents the police federation and was Carlson’s attorney during his suspension. “He’s only doing this because he feels a need to save his own skin.”
City Council Member Barbara Johnson, who had been calling for a review of comments in the BCA report, said she was glad McManus apologized.
“I think that’s a good thing,” she said.
Mayor R.T. Rybak said he’s troubled by some of the comments alleged in the BCA report and believes McManus is acting appropriately in calling for an investigation.
“I am more troubled that others are using these comments to diminish the importance of finding out how and why the investigation of the Ngo shooting was mishandled,” the mayor said.
The Star Tribune reported that at least five months ago police were focused on a strong suspect in the shooting after a longtime informant claimed the man admitted to the shooting.
The informant said that he had talked to the suspect at least four times at the Hennepin County Workhouse and that the suspect told him he had used a .40-caliber pistol, according to internal police documents reviewed Wednesday by the newspaper.
But when Ngo was presented with a six-person photo lineup Oct. 28, he couldn’t identify his assailant, the documents said.
McManus told the council that an inquiry into the handling of the department’s investigation of the Duy Ngo shooting will be done by two St. Paul police officers and a Minneapolis police review team of Deputy Chief Sharon Lubinski, Deputy Chief Tim Dolan, Inspector Don Harris and representatives from the human resources and city attorney’s departments.
Duy Ngo was shot on Feb. 25, 2003, while working at night in plain clothes on a drug case by an unknown assailant and then, mistakenly, by an officer responding to the incident who believed that Duy Ngo was the suspected shooter.
Council Member Dan Niziolek, the council’s public safety committee chairman, said he is disappointed that the probe into the Duy Ngo shooting and any review of how the department handled the investigation were not turned over to an outside agency.