{"id":790744,"date":"2026-07-29T05:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/790744\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T05:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:45:11","slug":"st-paul-police-chief-files-sexual-harassment-complaint-against-mayor-kaohly-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/790744\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Paul police chief files sexual harassment complaint against Mayor Kaohly Her"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her is being investigated after a formal sexual harassment complaint was filed against her, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has confirmed.<\/p>\n

A document outlining the complaint obtained by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS states that St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry filed the formal complaint against the mayor, alleging that Her made inappropriate sexual comments toward him and other city employees.<\/p>\n

That document<\/a>, which is addressed to the city attorney, is dated April 1 and states that, \u201clitigation is \u2018reasonably foreseeable.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry has participated in extensive interviews with investigators on at least two occasions.<\/p>\n

Attorney Chris Madel, who is representing Henry, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS in a statement, \u201cChief Henry just closed a triple-homicide case in under four hours. He\u2019s got a city to keep safe and has no comment on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the letter, Madel calls on the city attorney to \u201ctake all steps necessary to perform a full filesystem extraction\u201d of Her\u2019s phones.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from the mayor\u2019s office sent the following statement: \u201cTo protect confidentiality and the integrity of the process, the City will not comment on an active investigation.\u00a0The mayor has deep respect for city employees and regrets any unintended impact her actions may have had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Ross, the president of the St. Paul Police Federation, also sent a comment:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur obligation is to our membership and the focus of the Federation will remain on supporting the rank-and-file members who are out in the community risking their lives everyday. I am not in a position to elaborate further on this situation, but I do want the community to rest assured that our focus is on serving them with the commitment, class, and integrity that they\u2019ve come to expect and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allegations<\/p>\n

The letter to the city attorney claims that Her \u201cused one or more mobile phones to communicate inappropriate, and, indeed, unlawful text messages.\u201d<\/p>\n

It includes what appears to be a screenshot of a message saying, \u201cHappy Weiner Wednesday! Wish I was having a (hotdog emoji) with you all on 6 today!\u201d A redacted picture is then included with a statement message saying, \u201cWhen she wraps you up in her blanket after you gave her a good weinering,\u201d with laughing emojis.<\/p>\n

That is allegedly just one of numerous \u201cinappropriate\u201d incidents involving Her.<\/p>\n

The letter to the city attorney says they go \u201cbeyond isolated incidents\u201d and extend to other city employees and police officers. It adds that Henry came forward as the formal complainant over concerns that, without doing so, \u201cthe behavior will continue unchecked and may expose others to retaliation for speaking out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her made history as the first woman and first Hmong American<\/a> to become mayor of St. Paul less than 7 months ago. Recently, she\u2019s been in the spotlight for St. Paul\u2019s budget problems<\/a> and plans to clear homeless encampments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS is digging further into the allegations and has reached out to every St. Paul City Council member for comment but has not heard back. Download the KSTP app below to receive additional updates on this story.<\/p>\n

\"iPhone<\/a>\"Android<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Investigation<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Kaohly Her<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Richard Reeve<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Sexual Harassment<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0St. Paul<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0St. Paul Police Department<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her is being investigated after a formal sexual harassment complaint was filed against her,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,6270,336194,3,6398,3044,32342,161622,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-790744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-investigation","tag-kaohly-her","tag-news","tag-richard-reeve","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-st-paul","tag-st-paul-police-department","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}