Saint Paul's first female mayor is under investigation for sexual harassment after the city's police chief filed a formal complaint alleging she sent sexually suggestive text messages to subordinate employees, just six months into her term.
Police Chief Axel Henry filed the complaint on April 1 with Saint Paul City Attorney Irene Kao, accusing Mayor Kaohly Her of sending what his attorney called "inappropriate, and indeed, unlawful text messages" to city staffers, including members of the Saint Paul Police Department. The complaint, obtained by local station KSTP, describes a pattern of messages with sexual connotations sent to employees who report to the mayor's office.
The texts described in the complaint are not subtle. One message wished a staffer "Happy Weiner Wednesday." Another read: "Wish I was having a [hotdog emoji] with you all on 6 today." A third included an altered image of a baby wrapped in a blanket with the caption: "When she wraps you up in her blanket after you gave her a good weinering." The face on the baby in the altered image was redacted in the complaint, but the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported it belonged to an officer who had previously served on Her's security team.
Henry's attorney, Chris Madel, did not hold back in the complaint letter sent to the city attorney.
"The city is on notice that Mayor Her has engaged in illegal conduct towards City employees."
Madel also called for a "full filesystem extraction" of the cell phones involved, a demand that, if carried out, could reveal whether additional messages exist beyond those already documented. Whether that extraction has been ordered or completed remains unclear.
The complaint makes clear that the police chief views the mayor's conduct as more than a single awkward text. The formal filing states that Her's alleged behavior "extended beyond isolated incidents and has included sexual harassment of subordinate City employees, including members of the Saint Paul Police Department."
That language matters. It signals Henry received reports from multiple employees before deciding to act. The complaint's closing line framed his decision in protective terms: "In choosing to act, Chief Henry is not only seeking to address the wrongdoing but to create a measure of protection for his team, signaling that such conduct will not be tolerated."
Henry, who was named Saint Paul's police chief in November 2022, put his own professional standing on the line by filing the complaint against his boss. A police chief accusing a sitting mayor of unlawful conduct toward staff is not a routine personnel dispute. It is a direct challenge to the city's top elected official.
Her's office offered a brief statement to KSTP but declined to address specifics. A spokesperson said the mayor "has deep respect for city employees and regrets any unintended impact her actions may have had." Beyond that, the office said it would not comment on an "active investigation."
The phrase "unintended impact" is doing heavy lifting in that statement. The texts described in the complaint are not ambiguous. A message about giving someone "a good weinering" does not lend itself easily to an innocent alternative reading. The mayor's office did not deny the messages were sent.
Her, 53, defeated incumbent Melvin Carter III, Saint Paul's first Black mayor, in the November general election to become the city's first female mayor. She is Hmong-American and moved to the United States from Laos at age 3 after the Vietnam War. She served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from January 2019 through November 2025 before taking office.
Her victory speech leaned into the historic nature of her win. "My family came here as refugees. Never in their wildest dreams would I be standing here today accepting the position of mayor," she told supporters. "Three months ago, people told us this was impossible, look at us now."
The contrast between that moment and the current investigation is stark. A mayor who campaigned on breaking barriers now faces allegations that she subjected subordinate employees to sexually charged messages, the kind of conduct that, in any private-sector workplace, would trigger an immediate HR investigation and likely termination. Just The News reported that the leaked texts included sexually suggestive messages described as a pattern of behavior rather than isolated incidents, consistent with the complaint's own language.
The complaint does not specify which laws or statutes Her allegedly violated, beyond characterizing the messages as "unlawful" and constituting "illegal conduct." Minnesota's sexual harassment statutes cover unwelcome sexual conduct directed at subordinates, and the power imbalance between a mayor and city employees, particularly police officers assigned to her security, is significant.
No criminal charges, arrests, or formal disciplinary actions have been reported. The investigation is described only as "active." The city attorney's office, which received the complaint, has not publicly stated what steps it has taken in response.
Several questions remain open. Has the city attorney retained an outside investigator, or is the probe being handled internally, by an office that reports to the same city government the mayor leads? Has the "full filesystem extraction" Madel demanded actually been carried out? And are there additional messages or incidents beyond the three texts described in the complaint?
The complaint's reference to behavior that "extended beyond isolated incidents" suggests the documented texts may be only a fraction of the conduct at issue. If additional messages surface, the political and legal exposure for Her could grow considerably. The pattern described in the complaint, a Democratic elected official sending sexually suggestive messages to subordinate government employees, including law enforcement officers, is not the kind of story that stays local for long. It fits a broader pattern of Democratic officials facing misconduct allegations that party leadership has struggled to address.
Democrats have spent years positioning themselves as the party that takes workplace harassment seriously, the party of mandatory training, zero-tolerance policies, and "believe all women." Those standards do not come with a carve-out for Democratic mayors.
Her is hardly the only Democrat facing uncomfortable scrutiny. Rep. Jimmy Gomez recently admitted to personal misconduct after investigative reporting, and Senate leadership has ducked questions about other Democratic scandals rather than demanding accountability. The pattern is familiar: misconduct surfaces, the official expresses regret for any "unintended impact," and the party apparatus looks the other way until the story becomes too loud to ignore.
In Saint Paul, the police chief decided the story was already too loud. Henry put his complaint in writing, sent it to the city attorney, and made clear he expected a real investigation, not a quiet conversation and a promise to do better.
Whether the city's legal apparatus treats this complaint with the seriousness it deserves, or buries it in process, will say a great deal about whether Saint Paul's government holds its own leaders to the same rules it enforces on everyone else.
The facts in the complaint are specific, documented, and difficult to explain away. A mayor sent sexually suggestive texts to subordinate city employees. The police chief filed a formal complaint. The mayor's office did not deny the messages. When Democratic officials face law enforcement scrutiny, the question is always whether the system responds with the same rigor it would apply to anyone else.
If a male Republican mayor had sent these texts to female staffers, the calls for resignation would have started before the ink on the complaint was dry. The standard should not change because the name on the door belongs to a Democrat.
