St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter announced Monday that the city will hire an outside firm to audit its recreation center policies, after a staff member allegedly shot and critically injured a teenager.
Carter orders audit of St. Paul recreation centers after shooting
The alleged shooter, a city employee, has received formal notice of termination, Carter said.
January 23, 2023 at 11:15PM
The mayor said 26-year-old Exavir Dwayne Binford Jr., who was charged Friday with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault in connection with the Wednesday shooting outside Oxford Community Center, has received formal notice of termination. Carter added that he is "aware of rumors in the community and on social media reporting previous incidents involving the same staff member," including a 2019 physical altercation for which Binford received a five-day suspension.
"This new information raises urgent questions — not only about his conduct, but about our systems to identify, investigate and intervene in response to incidents and reports of behavior which fall beneath our standards," Carter said at a City Hall news conference.
The city will release more details about the timeline of the audit and opportunities for public engagement when information is available, he said. City officials did not take questions from the media following Carter's remarks.
"We've all heard the alerts from certain staffers and parents who have strongly stated that the conditions and conflicts have been brewing for a long time, particularly immediately following school dismissal, when hundreds of unsupervised students often flock into public spaces," Carter said.
The Oxford Community Center, which includes the Jimmy Lee Recreation Center, remains closed "as we focus on healing and recovery for our community, our youth and our staff," Carter said. From 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, mental health professionals will provide free support at St. Paul's Black Youth Healing Arts Center for members of the community traumatized by the shooting.
Binford worked for the city on an "on-and-off basis" since 2013, city officials said. According to a criminal complaint, he worked for four years at Arlington Rec Center and was transferred to Jimmy Lee in August. He was recently employed at the center as a community recreation specialist, a role that involves direct contact with youth and community members.
According to the criminal complaint, Binford had a physical altercation with some of the youth on-site Wednesday before he fired a shot, striking a 16-year-old in the head. On Monday, Carter said the teenager remains at Regions Hospital "fighting for his life."
City officials are working with Ramsey County leaders and St. Paul's legislative delegation to introduce a bill that would give cities the power to ban guns at libraries and rec centers.
"We will either change that law at the Capitol or challenge it in the courts," Carter said.
The mayor, a self-described product of St. Paul recreation centers, mourned the shooting as "by far the most gut-wrenching news I've ever had to deliver to this community."
"To call this incident unusual would be an enormous understatement. It is a wholly unprecedented occurrence, which has literally never happened before in our city's nearly 170 years of existence," Carter said. "It is our duty — it is our resolve — to take every possible step to ensure that it never, ever happens again."
Staff writer Josie Albertson-Grove contributed to this report.
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