[CityPages] Just a couple months ago, Fred Heidmann was in the news for social media support of a local teacher named Kara Hall, who'd written, of protests following George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police: "I know all I see are scary, awful blacks [sic] people robbing businesses that don't deserve this."
Heidmann, who could've said nothing, instead replied to add that "what was said is a pretty accurate account of what is happening." While he felt that "what happened to George Floyd is inexcusable," Heidmann defended the teacher's right to express herself, saying: "But when one side can say anything they want and get praised for it and the opposite side is chastised for everything they say, that then becomes communism."
(It does not.)
In another reply, Heidmann wrote: "What is harmful is teaching our children that Islam is good, Christianity is bad, there is no God of the Bible, science knows everything, America is bad Cuba is good, etc."
(Clearly what is harmful is Fred here teaching your children literally anything.)
So, that's Mayor Heidmann. Fast forward to this past Saturday, when cops from the Pequot Lakes Police Department and Nisswa Police Department made a traffic stop, which then turned into a search of a car.
As seen in body-cam footage obtained by the Brainerd Dispatch, Heidmann -- walking a dog and filming with his phone -- approaches one officer and asks: "What are you guys doing?"
When that cop (who didn't make the initial stop) can't say why the driver was pulled over, Heidmann says, "You guys are emptying his fucking car out on the road. What the hell are you guys up to? Don't you guys have something better to do, like patrol the goddamn streets?"
"Go stand back over there," the cop tells him. "This isn't safe for you."
That sounds right; as they talk, cars continually whiz by on the two lanes of highway right next to Heidmann, the cops, and his leashed dog.
Heidmann is just getting started:
"You know what? I'm the mayor of this fucking town, and you guys get the hell off our highway out here."
Heidmann throws in a "Fuck you guys," then calls the cops "fucking dinks," twice, before telling them they're not even qualified to be making this kind of stop.
"You'd think up in this area we'd have some decent fucking cops. You're as bad as the fucking dinks down in Minneapolis."
Finally, Heidmann tells one cop to "shut the fuck up," and leaves.
And then he came back to confront the fucking dink cops of this fucking town. This time, Heidmann was dog-free, and the incident was captured from inside the car, by one of the people being pulled over, who later uploaded the footage to TikTok.
That clip has since been taken down, but part of it appears here in a report on the incident from Lakeland PBS.
"You're not qualified to do this kind of work," Heidmann says on the video. "You should be patrolling the streets."
At that point, the cop grabs the mayor's arm and briefly wraps a forearm around his neck (!), before pinning him facedown on the hood of the car and arresting him for disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process, the Dispatch reports.
In a statement to the paper, Heidmann said he'd worried "what impression this was making with the hundreds of vacationing families going by seeing what appeared to be tourists having their goods rifled through." Heidmann plans to fight any charges against him on free speech grounds.
In his own reponse, Nisswa Police Department Chief Craig Taylor credited his officers for being patient and restrained, adding: "I am disappointed and extremely sad that an elected official feels justified in inserting himself into a traffic stop that has nothing to do with him and feels it is appropriate to yell and swear at two officers from two jurisdictions that are doing nothing more than trying to do their jobs and making people safe." 
|
