City and Police Union Battle Over Officer Reinstatement

The officer in question has been on leave from the police department since 2017.

DULUTH, Minn.- The city of Duluth’s top attorney s standing firm against the reinstatement of a Duluth police officer.

That officer is Adam Huot. He was fired in 2017 after being caught on video dragging a combative man by the handcuffs before that man’s head hit a doorway in the skywalk. Huot was ultimately given his job back after an unpaid suspension.

But city officials aren’t having it.

After 13 months of unpaid leave equaling over 70 thousand dollars of lost income an arbitrator gave officer Huot his job back. But in December the city attorney contested Huot’s case.

“The city administration and our police administration feels very strongly that this type of behavior is not going to be tolerated in the city of Duluth. So we are going to do as much as we can to make sure this officer never patrols the streets of Duluth again, “city attorney Gunnar Johnson said in an email.

Johnson says he will continue to fight Huot’s position at the state court of appeals despite the recent case decided in favor of a Twin Cities police officer that is very similar to Huot’s.

However Duluth police union president Sgt. Ryan Morris says the city should drop the legal battle since Huot has already paid an excessive penalty for his actions.

“We as a union, we’re not here to judge the right or the wrong of things, because I think we can all agree, including officer Huot, who said he could have done things differently in this case…

The union’s position is simply we are here to ensure a fair process,” Morris said.

Sgt. Morris says it wouldn’t be right to punish officer Huot any more than he already has especially since there are other cases within the state that defend his reinstatement.