Charges possible after bar scrape

Following an Aug. 27 altercation at a local bar involving Cloquet city councilor Steve Langley, the man who says Langley shoved him without provocation — Cloquet’s Brian Vanderwerff — wants the councilor to be charged with assault.

This is the second time in two years that Langley has been accused of assaulting someone at The Jack, although the victim in the first case, Don Gentilini, never wanted to press charges. He did, however, file a “matter of record” report with the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office on Nov. 5, 2018.

Whether or not Langley — or even Vanderwerff — will be charged in the current situation remains unknown.

City attorney Frank Yetka told the Pine Knot News last week that because Langley is a sitting city councilor, his office would have a conflict of interest in the matter and will not make a decision in the case. Thus, as they have done with the recent case of a Cloquet police officer charged with DWI, they would have to “refer the matter out to be reviewed by charges by another prosecuting attorney.”

As of Sept. 2, Yetka said they had not sent the case file to any outside counsel.

Neither the Cloquet police department nor Yetka’s office responded to requests from the Pine Knot News for the incident report from the Aug. 27 call, but the police department did share the call for service records, or command log.

According to the call log, the initial call came in at just after 5:17 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27. Vanderwerff is listed as the initial reporter, Langley as an involved person and The Jack bar owner Adam Bailey and Andy Berg as witnesses. Police were on the scene for approximately 35 minutes.

According to the call log, Vanderwerff called from outside the bar and said Langley had knocked him down and was still inside the bar. No medical assistance was needed, and no weapons were involved. Officers took statements from the witnesses and involved parties at the scene, and noted that a report would be sent to the attorney’s office for review. A final entry, eight minutes after the officers left the scene, added that Vanderwerff “is trespassed from the Jack per the bar owner.”

Langley and Vanderwerff tell very different stories about the incident.

According to Langley, he was harassed by “an intoxicated male” at The Jack that evening, someone who has a history of difference of opinion with his stance on some issues as a councilor.

“This individual escalated the harassment when I refused to acknowledge his request to go outside with him and ‘take care of the problem’ which I am not even sure what he was referring to,” Langley wrote in response to the Pine Knot, never naming Vanderwerff.

When he went to the bathroom, Langley said, the man followed, “screaming in my face without any mask or means of protecting me from the spit and saliva that was coming out of his mouth as he spoke just inches from my face (Covid risk).”

Langley said he left the restroom after approximately three minutes to go back to his stool at the bar “where on two different occasions where [Vanderwerff] was trying to stop, he bumped me and spun me around. He raised his arm and I acted to protect myself by pushing him away, which resulted in him following on the ground, highly likely due to his consumption of alcohol.”

Langley alleged that Vanderwerff yelled, “Look what this city councilor did to me” as he lay on the floor. Bailey then escorted him out of the building.

For his part, Vanderwerff told the Pine Knot that he wanted to talk to Langley about some untruths he had spread about Vanderwerff — allegedly telling an employee that he had worked for the police — and he asked to have a private conversation with Langley in the smoking area outside. He bought him a beer and asked to talk, but Langley declined.

Vanderwerff said he went to the bathroom about a half-hour later and as Langley entered, Vanderwerff asked him why he was spreading rumors and asked him to stop defaming and slandering him, and that was it, he said.

“I followed him out of the bathroom back to our seats at the bar. When suddenly he turned around and pushed me to the ground,” Vanderwerff told the Pine Knot in a Facebook message.

After he called the police, he said, the officers said he could be charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct. Vanderwerff claims he never argued with Langley or raised his voice. Vanderwerff said he wasn’t drunk, and had only a Bloody Mary and half a beer over the hour he was there.

That evening, Vanderwerff had a floor burn on his forearm as a result of the fall; the next day, he said, his chest and back hurt.

Bailey confirmed on Wednesday that he has shared the bar security video from the evening of the incident with the Cloquet police.

Not the first time

According to the written account in the Sheriff’s Office command log regarding the 2018 incident at The Jack, Gentilini said he went to the bar to meet friends, and was walking to the bathroom when Langley slapped him in the chest and said there was a girl who quit hockey because of one of the coaches. Both Gentilini and Langley were on the Cloquet Area Hockey Association board at the time, Gentilini as president. About 10 minutes later, according to the report, Langley approached Gentilini again, allegedly calling the hockey board a joke and poking and pushing Gentilini in the chest. When Gentilini asked him to stop, Langley allegedly asked him “What are you going to do about it?” and swung a beer can at Gentilini. Both men then grabbed each other by the shoulder, and Langley allegedly broke a chain Gentilini was wearing around his neck, leaving marks. According to the report, Gentilini said he pushed Langley to the ground and bar owner Adam Bailey kicked Langley out. He said Langley called and apologized the next day.

Sgt. Ryan Rennquist, the deputy investigating the 2018 report, noted eight days later that he went to get the video from Bailey, who said he had a guy coming to download the video later that week. Rennquist spoke to Langley at the same time, who said the incident stemmed from something at the hockey shelter and that he felt it had been blown out of proportion. It is unclear if the Sheriff’s Department ever received the video from the report, which was noted as complete that same day.

When asked about the recent alleged assault, Cloquet city administrator Tim Peterson declined to comment.

The Cloquet City Council censured Langley in June 2019, after independent investigator Michelle Soldo found that Langley had sent an unwanted text message to former Cloquet police chief Wade Lamirande and contacted and complained to Lamirande’s current boss in Langley’s capacity as city councilor. Langley is not running for council again, so his term will expire at the end of the year.

Gentilini did not respond to a request for comment from the Pine Knot News.