St. Paul’s police chief fired five officers Thursday after an investigation determined they did not intervene when a man assaulted a patron outside an East Side bar and restaurant.
The assault last June involved Tou Mo Cha, a former St. Paul police officer, according to a Police Department source.
Cha resigned as a police officer 14 years ago after he was accused of lending his department-issued handgun. Someone then used the gun to shoot into a restaurant and a house.
Last December, Ramsey County prosecutors charged Cha with assault, saying he seriously injured a man outside a Payne-Phalen bar and restaurant, Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, in June 2018. Cha’s wife owns the business and he helps run it. He has pleaded not guilty.
On Thursday, Police Chief Todd Axtell said the five officers responded to an incident and “while they were there, an individual assaulted others and officers did not intervene.”
Axtell did not say that the case involved Cha. He said state law limits him from providing details about what happened because the internal affairs investigation remains open.
“Officers are expected to intervene when criminal acts occur in their presence,” Axtell said as he announced the terminations at an afternoon news conference. “Officers are expected to protect the vulnerable and officers are expected — I demand — that officers tell the truth.
“When officers fail to live up to these standards, it affects everyone who wears the badge … and that’s why I’ve taken this action,” Axtell continued. “This community deserves to know that its St. Paul police officers will always do the right thing and will always tell the truth.”
The Police Department did not release the officers’ names, but the Pioneer Press determined through various documents and sources that they are Nicholas Grundei, Robert Luna, Christopher Rhoades, Nathan Smith and Jordan Wild.
RELATED: 5 St. Paul police officers fired: Who are they?
St. Paul police union officials said they will contest the firings.
“The termination of five cops is unprecedented and absolutely outrageous in our mind,” said Paul Kuntz, president of the St. Paul Police Federation. “… We will fight this as far as we can and with everything we have.”
INVESTIGATION SHOWS ‘VIOLATION OF TRUST’
The Police Department conducted an internal affairs investigation, and Axtell said he “learned of a violation of trust, deceit and significant policy violations.”
There is video footage of the assault, Axtell said.
After the Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission issued recommendations last week in the case, Axtell met with the five officers on Thursday morning and made his decision to terminate them.
Mayor Melvin Carter said in a Thursday statement he supports Axtell’s leadership and the work of the review commission “to enforce strong ethical standards in our police department.”
“While the vast majority of our officers meet and exceed these standards every day, the trust we place in them demands accountability for actions that fall below our high expectations,” Carter said.
In his 30 years as a St. Paul police officer, Axtell did not recall another time when multiple officers were fired in the same incident. He described it as “a huge withdrawal from our bank of trust.”
“My ongoing pledge to you, our community, is to move forward from this ugly day in our department’s history and once again, get back to making deposits into a fully funded bank of trust,” Axtell said.
More information about the case from last June will become available if the officers’ firings are upheld or other discipline is finalized.
At the news conference. Axtell delivered a message to the community: “I’m sorry. This should never have happened. I will always be transparent, accountable and honest with you, in good times and in bad times, and especially when the news is disappointing.”
And Axtell also publicly addressed the department’s officers: “I know that you have difficult jobs. … I will not let the actions of a few tarnish and stain the uniform that you’ve earned to wear. … As long as your actions are reasonable, necessary and done with respect, I will always, always have your back.”
Since Axtell became police chief three years, he fired one other officer — Brett Palkowitsch, who kicked Frank Baker when he was being bitten by a police dog. A state arbitrator, however, ruled that Palkowitsch should get his job back.
A federal grand jury indicted Palkowitsch in January and alleged he used excessive force in the Baker case. He has pleaded not guilty.
CHARGE: BAR WORKER HIT MAN IN HEAD WITH BATON
Last June 17, there was a gathering of family members at Checkerboard Pizza at Arcade Street and Jenks Avenue and a fight broke out. Police dispersed the crowd, according to the December criminal complaint charging Tou Mo Cha, 50, with felony assault.
“One of the responding squad cars left the immediate area but parked, with its lights off, across the street,” the complaint said. “Another fight broke out and, as the squad car approached the crowd, the video recording system in the squad car captured a male down on all fours.”
One male was using his fists to hit the man on the ground. Another man, later identified as Cha, “swung a baton over his head and brought the baton down on (the man), who was completely defenseless,” the complaint continued.
“Apparently noticing the approaching squad car, Tou Cha and the other male moved away, as members of the crowd moved in to help” the injured man, according to the complaint.
The man was taken to the hospital and treated for a concussion. He went to police headquarters three days later to provide information about the assault, according to a police report dated June 20.
The man sustained two “significant” cuts to his head from separate blows — one required seven staples to close and the other 17 staples, the complaint said. He reported that he was on the sidewalk when Cha pepper-sprayed him, and then struck him with a baton.
When police interviewed Cha, he told an investigator he intended to hit someone with a baton, but accidentally knocked a bouncer into the street instead.
“The (surveillance) video he showed the investigator documented that, but did not show the area where (the man) was struck,” the complaint said. “Cha said the camera in that area didn’t work.”
A pretrial hearing in the case is scheduled for next month. Cha intends to use a claim of self-defense or defense of others, according to a court filing by his attorney, Jack Rice.
Rice said he doesn’t know whether the internal affairs investigation will affect Cha’s case.
While the December criminal complaint in the case describes police activity at the scene of the fight, it wasn’t clear Thursday how that fit in with the five officers’ inaction alleged by Axtell. It also wasn’t clear when the investigation that led to the charges against Cha originated.
FORMER OFFICER NOW WORKS AT WIFE’S BAR
When Cha was a St. Paul police officer, he was charged in 2004 with lending his department-issued handgun. The gun was used in a pair of drive-by shootings that targeted members of the Hmong community. No one was injured.
Cha pleaded guilty to making terroristic threats in 2005 and resigned from the police force.
In recent years, police have received reports about Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, which Cha’s wife owns and he helps operate.
In 2014, 34-year-old Nicholas James Keilen died a couple of months after he said bouncers assaulted him outside the bar and restaurant, also known as Checkerbar Food & Liquor. The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office ruled the manner of Keilen’s death as undetermined, and no one was arrested or charged.
Other men told police in 2011 and 2014 that security guards assaulted them. And in 2013, a group of people reported to police that Cha had pepper-sprayed them. No bar employees were charged in those cases.
The business paid a $500 fine to the city in 2017 and a $1,000 fine last year, “both related to failure to provide video to SPPD,” according to a St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections spokeswoman.
Neither Cha nor his wife could be reached for comment Thursday.
Jasmine Johnson contributed to this report.
