“He had a knife, in a sheath”: Fargo City Commissioners Concerned About Safety at City Hall

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR)– Fargo City Commissioners are still reeling from the discovery that an audience member brought a knife with them to Tuesday night’s meeting.

City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn describes the emotions he felt at the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting when he found out somebody had been armed in the audience the entire time.

“Commissioner Turnberg sits right next to me and goes, ‘Did you know that gentleman had a knife?’ And then when I looked over, he had a knife, in a sheath, on the side of his leg.”

The individual in question didn’t brandish the knife or do anything with it that could be considered an active threat –

“Thankfully, it wasn’t cause of an actual incident.”

but Piepkorn says it was still a tense moment.

“some of these things get emotional, and so we have to do things to protect everybody, as well as the people that come in.”

Mayor Mahoney agrees –

“That was an alarm, of ‘What do we do about this.'”

With it bringing topic of safety to the forefront –

“With what’s going on in the world, we probably have to look at more security and look at what that will be.”

something echoed by Piepkorn.

“We’ve talked about improving the security in the building for quite a while, since it was built, but this kind of brought it to a new level.”

Officials say they’re going to make some immediate changes –

“When you come to a meeting, oh I’d probably better leave my backpack at home, I probably can’t bring my computer in, and those types of things.”

and are now seriously looking into the possibility of more major shifts down the road.

“The county does have you go through a metal detector if you go into the county, and we’ve been a little reluctant to do that because we want people to feel welcome in our chambers.”

“I think eventually we’ll have to do that with the whole city hall – have it be a secure building.”

Piepkorn says the issue is about far more than just keeping the commission members safe.

“But for the public that’s here, the media, this staff.”

Mahoney and Piepkorn both say that any major changes, such as the implementation of metal detectors, are at least a couple of months out from coming to fruition.