MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota school district has banned a police officer from working as a substitute teacher after a series of “racially harmful” actions that officials say included putting a student on the ground for a reenactment of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer.
The staffing agency that placed him at Woodbury High School said Wednesday that he also no longer works for them, while the Prescott, Wisconsin, Police Department put him on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
The man was serving as a substitute English teacher on Monday when he told students in four separate 10th and 12th grade classes that they might want to hear about his life as a police officer, school officials said in a letter to students, families and staff.
Besides the reenactment of the actions that led to the death of George Floyd, students also complained that the substitute teacher “repeatedly made racially harmful comments,” “told sexist jokes," “spoke in disturbing detail about dead bodies he had seen,” said “cops would be the best criminals” because “they know how to get away with stuff,” and “stated that police brutality isn't real,” according to the letter.
The letter was signed by the principal of Woodbury High School and the superintendent and assistant superintendent of the South Washington County Schools district. It said the man is now prohibited from setting foot on district property. They also said they reported the incident to the Minnesota Department of Education, the state teacher licensing board and the Woodbury Police Department.
Floyd died after a white officer pinned his neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes despite the Black man's dying pleas of “I can't breathe.” Children were among the concerned witnesses, including a teen who captured the video, which was widely viewed on social media. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder.
Floyd's death touched off protests that sometimes turned violent, testing the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz at one of the state’s most consequential moments, and sparking a nationwide reckoning over racial discrimination and police misconduct.
“I specifically want to acknowledge racial harm that occurred when the substitute teacher reenacted the prone restraint that resulted in the murder of George Floyd,” Principal Sarah Sorenson-Wanger wrote.
“This reported behavior is reprehensible. I am embarrassed, and I am sorry this happened to our students. We will take as much time as students need to listen and create open space for courageous conversations that lead to healing, action and education. The reported actions are not, and will not, be tolerated at Woodbury High School or in South Washington County Schools,” the principal wrote.
The city of Prescott, Wisconsin, later Wednesday identified him as Patrol Officer Steve Williams, a two-year veteran of the department. He was off duty and not serving in an official capacity, the city said in a statement.
“The City of Prescott and the Prescott Police Department find the current allegations, if true, made against Mr. Williams to be very disturbing, reprehensible, and we in no way condone his actions,” the statement said.
A Pierce County, Wisconsin, dispatcher said Williams was not working Wednesday and would not take a message for him.
Woodbury is a suburb southeast of St. Paul, and the eastern suburbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area extend into western Wisconsin, including Prescott.
The substitute was hired through Teachers on Call, a staffing agency that's part of the national Kelly Education employment network. The company said Williams passed comprehensive background checks before he was placed.
“The actions of this individual were unacceptable, and the substitute teacher is no longer an employee of Teachers on Call," company spokesperson Danielle Nixon said in a statement. “We recognize the significant public trust placed in us to ensure our substitute educators maintain a safe learning environment. We have a zero-tolerance policy for any form of violent, aggressive, or harmful behavior.”
Citing the ongoing investigation, she added that Teachers on Call is not releasing any additional information on its former employee.
Woodbury Police Chief Jason Posel said in a statement Wednesday that his department is “disturbed by the preliminary information of what occurred” and will investigate this incident to the fullest extent, while showing compassion to the students impacted.”
Department of Education spokesperson Anna Kurth said in an email that the state agency has been in contact with the district to offer resources to students, families and staff, but that under privacy laws it can't confirm or deny the receipt of any report or investigation of alleged maltreatment of minors.
The South Washington County Schools district says it serves about 18,700 students at 25 schools in seven communities. It says 37% of its students identify as a race other than white.
FILE - Antonio Jenkins paints a mural of George Floyd at the site where he was murdered by a police officer in 2020 at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, May 25, 2024. (Alex Kormann/Star Tribune via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — As she anticipates her estranged uncle's return to the White House, Mary Trump isn't expecting any future book to catch on like such first-term tell-alls as Michael Wolff's million-selling “Fire and Fury” or her own blockbuster, “Too Much and Never Enough.”
“What else is there to learn?” she says. “And for people who don't know, the books have been written. It's all really out in the open now.”
For publishers, Donald Trump's presidential years were a time of extraordinary sales in political books, helped in part by Trump's legal threats and angered tweets. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the hardcover and paperback market, the genre's sales nearly doubled from 2015 to 2020, from around 5 million copies to around 10 million.
Besides books by Wolff and Trump, other bestsellers included former FBI Director James Comey's “A Higher Loyalty,” former national security adviser John Bolton's “The Room Where it Happened” and Bob Woodward's “Fear.” Meanwhile, sales for dystopian fiction also jumped, led by Margaret Atwood's “A Handmaid's Tale,” which was adapted into an award-winning Hulu series.
But interest has dropped back to 2015 levels since Trump left office, according to Circana, and publishers doubt it will again peak so highly. Readers not only showed little interest in books by or about President Joe Biden and his family — they even seemed less excited about Trump-related releases. Mary Trump's “Who Could Ever Love You” and Woodward's “War” were both popular this fall, but neither has matched the sales of their books written during the first Trump administration.
“We’ve been there many times, with all those books,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham says of the various Trump tell-alls. He added that he still sees a market for at least some Trump books — perhaps analyzing the recent election — because “there's a general, serious smart audience, not politically aligned in a hard way,” one that would welcome “an intelligent voice.”
In the days following Trump's victory, “The Handmaid's Tale” and George Orwell's “1984” returned to bestseller lists, along with more contemporary works such as Timothy Snyder's “On Tyranny," a 2017 bestseller that expanded upon a Facebook post Snyder wrote soon after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Books appealing to pro-Trump readers also surged, including those written by Cabinet picks — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s “The Real Anthony Fauci” and Pete Hegseth's “The War on Warriors” — and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance's “Hillbilly Elegy,” his 2016 memoir that's sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Trump selected him as his running mate.
First lady Melania Trump's memoir, “Melania,” came out in October and has been high on Amazon.com bestseller lists for weeks, even as critics found it contained little newsworthy information. According to Circana, it has sold more than 200,000 copies, a figure that does not include books sold directly through her website.
“The Melania book has done extraordinarily well, better than we thought,” says Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “After Election Day, we sold everything we had of it.”
Conservative books have sold steadily over the years, and several publishers — most recently Hachette Book Group — have imprints dedicated to those readers. Publishers expect at least some critical books to reach bestseller lists — if only because of the tradition of the publishing market favoring the party out of power. But the nature of what those books would look like is uncertain. Perhaps a onetime insider will have a falling out with Trump and write a memoir, like Bolton or former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, or maybe some of his planned initiatives, whether mass deportation or the prosecution of his political foes, will lead to investigative works.
A new “Fire and Fury” is doubtful, with the originally only possible because Wolff enjoyed extraordinary access, spending months around Trump and his White House staff. Members of the president-elect's current team have already issued a statement saying they have refused to speak with Wolff, calling the author a “known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened.”
A publicist for Wolff said he was declining comment.
Woodward, who interviewed Trump at length for the 2020 bestseller “Rage,” told The Associated Press that he had written so much about Trump and other presidents that he wasn't sure what he'd take on next. He doesn't rule out another Trump book, but that will depend in part on the president-elect, how “out of control he gets,” Woodward said, and how far he is able to go.
“He wants to be the imperial president, where he gets to decide everything and no one's going to get in his way,” Woodward said. “He's run into some brick walls in the past and there may be more brick walls. I don't know what will happen. I'll be watching and doing some reporting, but I'm still undecided.”
1. “Too Much and Never Enough,” by Mary Trump: 1,248,212 copies
2. “Fire and Fury,” by Michael Wolff: 936,116 copies
3. “Fear,” by Bob Woodward: 872,014 copies
4. “The Room Where It Happened,” by John Bolton: 676,010 copies
5. “Rage,” by Bob Woodward: 549,685 copies
These figures represent total sales provided by Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market and does not include e-book or audiobook sales.
FILE - A customer looks at a copy of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as they go on sale at a bookshop, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - Mary Trump discussing her book "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" at The 92nd Street Y on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Books are displayed under a sign at the Harvard Book Store, Thursday, March 9, 2017, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE - A customer looks at a copy of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as they go on sale at a bookshop, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - A collection of books about President Donald Trump, from left, "Siege" by Michael Wolff, "Devil's Bargain" by Joshua Green, "Where Law Ends" by Andrew Weissmann, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership" by James Comey, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, "Rage" by Bob Woodward, "Too Much and Never Enough" by Mary L. Trump, "Disloyal" by Michael Cohen, "Donald Trump V. The United States" by Michael S. Schmidt, "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World" by H. R. McMaster and "Wicked Game" by Rick Gates appear on a shelf in Westchester County, N.Y. on Monday, Nov. 9, 2020. (AP Photo, File)
