Attorney: Hennepin County’s response to alleged sheriff’s harassment was ‘too little, too late’

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Back to that top story, this morning attorneys and seven current and former Hennepin County Sheriff's office employees filed an explosive lawsuit against Hennepin County, blasting the behavior of former Sheriff Dave Hutchinson. Among the plaintiffs is current Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt. Now the lawsuit outlines former Sheriff Hutchinson's alleged bigotry, erratic behavior, and harassment that some say caused them to fear for their lives. It's just one part of what was a tumultuous time in office for Hutchinson.

In 2021, he was found to be driving drunk at extremely high speeds in a county-owned vehicle, after which he was on leave until the end of his time in office. He was censured by the Hennepin County board of commissioners following a damning human resources investigation. The lawsuit alleges that Hennepin County officials were aware of Hutchinson's behavior and did not stop it. An attorney filing the lawsuit. One of them is Steven Andrew Smith with Nichols Kaster law firm. He's here to talk about it. Thanks for taking the time, Mr. Smith.

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: Thanks, Cathy. Glad to be here.

CATHY WURZER: This is an eye-popping list of allegations. When did employees go to County officials and report issues with the Sheriff?

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: Well, the answer to that layered. It started with the sexual orientation discrimination allegations, which had dated back to 2019 and involved a couple of different employees, one of them that's not a plaintiff in this case. And nothing was done with respect to that. Race discrimination comments and behaviors started not too long after that. Again, no action taken. And then, as you just mentioned, when following the DUI incident with the former Sheriff, that's when things really started to go off the rails.

Around that same time, there was-- and this is in the complaint-- there was an issue with time cards, an allegation that there were people that the former Sheriff was allowed to be paid when it was fairly apparent they weren't working. A number of our clients went to the county to report that because, of course, that's fraud. And then that was the beginning of things really going south.

CATHY WURZER: The employees who feared for their lives said, at times, there were instances where the former Sheriff would unholster his service revolver, which was loaded. What was going on there? What did they say was happening?

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: So one thing we've heard from all our clients, and this makes sense of course, is when you're-- the way that you handle a weapon, and particularly the way a police officer handles a weapon, is a big deal. It's not something you joke about. You don't joke about shooting anyone. You don't take out your gun. it's a serious thing, and it's handled seriously, and that's not how it was handled here. There were-- and this is detailed in the complaint-- there were jokes where someone's in a meeting and maybe someone said something that the Sheriff wasn't fond of, and he'd put his hand on his gun and jokingly say, should we shoot him?

So that's all the backdrop that had happened a few times, and that's all the backdrop leading up to the more direct threats. One particularly that was sort of terrifying for our clients was the "Watch your six" six one or "Karma's going to get you. Watch your six." is apparently military speak for "Watch your back." So as things were spiraling out of control in early 2022--

CATHY WURZER: After the DUI.

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: That is exactly right. A lot of the things that you think about-- if you think about what a terrible time we live in terms of a mass shooting or some sort of shooting occurring almost on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, and sometimes you look at those incidents and you say, well, what were the hallmarks of-- what were the hallmarks of the facts here? What could have told us that something was going to go wrong? In this situation, had all those hallmarks. So by the time you've got a Sheriff acting erratically, not handling his weapon occasionally inappropriately, joking about or not joking about, "Watch your six," and "Karma going to get you."

Those are all things that really were terrifying for our clients, and there was about a four-week window in 2022 where absolutely nothing was being done. He was still allowed to come in the office, and our clients were very fearful that something terrible was going to happen. In fact, Tim Stout one of our clients actually went to another county's Sheriff's department and had dispatched two Sheriff's deputies to sit outside his house for a three-day window. That just gives you an idea of how terrified these folks were that something was going to happen.

CATHY WURZER: And one of your clients is the current Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt. Let's listen to a little bit of what she had to say at this morning's news conference.

DAWANNA WITT: The behavior we experienced was harmful, embarrassing, and illegal. The amount of undue stress that it caused not only on the people in this complaint but also our families. We did not sign up for this, and our families certainly didn't sign up for it either, and we are here today because Hennepin County failed as an employer to fully address these actions and the continuous retaliation that we experienced, and in some cases, still are experiencing.

CATHY WURZER: Now we heard from the County in a statement, and I'm going to quote now, "County administration took prompt action to investigate these claims once alerted and worked diligently to address Sheriff Hutchinson's conduct during a very challenging time with support from the county board. The county will vigorously defend against these claims." So they say that they acted, and you're saying that's just simply not true.

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: Well, I think it's a case of too little, too late. They seem to want it both ways. On the one hand, they have taken the position that well, he's an elected official. What were we supposed to do? And when the evidence comes out, over the course of the next year or so, I think you're going to see more specific allegations like that. What are we supposed to do? He's an elected official?

But then at the same time, they're saying, well we did eventually talk him into going on leave, and we eventually did an investigation, and yeah, we maybe censured him. Well that censure occurred a handful of days before his time in the office was done. So it certainly seems like some of what was being done was driven by the politics of the situation and not a concern for our folks. They could have acted earlier in terms of months and years. It wasn't like the things that were happening. They were on notice of the things that were happening.

And like any employer in Minnesota, public or private, once you're on notice that there's a problem in your workplace, either discrimination-related or whistleblower-related or safety-related, you have to take action immediately. You can't wait for weeks and then start an investigation. You can't take seven months and wait before you tell them what's going on. So I think there'll be an interesting factual dispute on that issue. We certainly think that their behavior was in the too little, too late category.

CATHY WURZER: Speaking of timing, these many disturbing allegations occurred a number of years ago. Why a lawsuit now?

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: So we were retained approximately a year or so ago, and we entered into what's called a tolling agreement with the employer, which is essentially where you push the pause button on the time deadlines that control when you bring a claim, and we did that to try to engage in information, exchange, and see if there was a way to resolve the claim. We eventually-- we exchange information. We had a mediation that was unsuccessful, and then the county ended the tolling agreement. So then the clock was ticking on our claims again. And so that's the reason for the delay.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I need to run. I know you do too. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

STEVEN ANDREW SMITH: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Attorney Stephen Andrews Smith with Nichols Kaster. You can read this full lawsuit, by the way, right now at mprnews.org. We'll have more on this story later this afternoon on All Things Considered.