Dopey Pol Sends Himself Fake Grenade in the Mail, Career Explodes

The story neglects to mention his party affiliation, so we were already assuming he's a Democrat. But not so fast...

Over the several years of rebukes for his public behavior, St. Francis City Council Member Leroy Schaffer has claimed he was the victim of political adversaries.

Last Friday, he reported a letter bomb as evidence, police say. But in the end, the "enemy" may have been himself.

Charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, Schaffer resigned from his council seat Thursday afternoon. He did not return repeated phone calls.

An Anoka County Sheriff's release outlines perhaps the strangest chapter in his unusual political history.

According to the release, Schaffer called St. Francis police to his house at 5:30 p.m. last Friday, reporting a suspicious package. He showed the arriving officer a box, still in his mailbox, which had a Chicago postmark. Schaffer insisted that the officer open the package, the release said. When the officer refused, Schaffer opened it himself. Inside, the officer saw what appeared to be a hand grenade. Schaffer proclaimed it a "dud," the sheriff's office said, showing the officer a hole drilled in its bottom. There also was a note, "The next one will be real."

Investigators from the sheriff's office were called. They noted that the package was addressed with a preprinted label from the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Inside Schaffer's house, investigators found a sheet of identical labels, minus one.

In an interview, the release said, Schaffer acknowledged to investigators that he had driven to Chicago and sent the package to himself from a post office there. He told them he had done it "for sympathy from the public, claiming, 'There's a lot of people out there that want to kill me, that's why I sent it to myself.'"

It appears this schmuck is a member of the Green Party and already has quite a history.

Schaffer, 72, had received three censures from the council for inappropriate conduct toward women. After a woman accused Schaffer of continued harassment at a June 20 council meeting, Schaffer was looking at a fourth censure -- and not just for that one incident.

"I have had no less than a dozen phone calls from women in my community asking for my help to get Leroy to stop bothering them," Tveit told City Pages last night. "And there's also been probably another dozen ladies that have gone in to city hall... and asked, 'Please get Leroy to stop bothering me.'"

Schaffer is also legally banned from two local businesses, with both trespassing orders owing to sexual harassment.