“It caused me to think how I really wanted to treat people differently,” he mentioned. “And it had an influence, that’s for sure.”
Chief Magnus began his regulation enforcement profession in 1979 as a dispatcher within the Lansing Police Department, rose by means of the ranks and in 1999 turned the police chief in Fargo, N.D., the place he helped set up a liaison program for refugees.
Later, because the police chief in Richmond, he helped drive down violent crime. In 2014, one among his final years with the division, the town recorded simply 11 homicides, the bottom quantity in additional than 4 many years. That 12 months, Chief Magnus was photographed holding the Black Lives Matter signal and, when criticized by the native police union, mentioned he would do it once more.
But in Richmond, Chief Magnus additionally confronted a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by seven Black sergeants, lieutenants and captains, though in 2012 a jury rejected all of the claims. In 2015, a former Richmond police officer settled a wrongful termination lawsuit with the division after he mentioned he was fired for complaining that Chief Magnus sexually harassed him and made racial slurs. Chief Magnus known as the accusations “entirely bogus.”
“There were still people at that time who felt I’m an easier target because I’m a gay man,” he mentioned. “That’s not the first time in my career I’ve experienced that.”
In Tucson final 12 months, Chief Magnus once more drew hearth when the division took two months to launch the body-camera video of the death of a 27-year-old Latino man, Carlos Ingram Lopez, who pleaded repeatedly for water as he was being restrained by law enforcement officials.
Chief Magnus attributed the delay to a bureaucratic breakdown, saying he didn’t instantly watch the video. But he mentioned he wished he had finished extra to see it himself. “We should have asked to see the video but that didn’t happen, and when we did ultimately see it obviously we were very concerned about it,” he mentioned. Chief Magnus provided his resignation throughout a information convention because the video was made public, however the mayor saved him on the pressure and praised his work in a press release on Monday.
