Report: Metro Gang Strike Force chairman used influence to spare daughter's car

In last week's cover story about controversial Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, we wrote about the recently disbanded Metro Gang Strike Force-- Fletcher's most cherished project and subject of two investigations (one by the FBI and the other by Department of Public Safety). Long story short: the unit had no system in place to account for highly valuable evidence seized in the field, a set-up that all but invited corruption.

Today, the Strike Force is again in the headlines for less than savory reasons.

From the Strib:

The chairman of the Metro Gang Strike Force's oversight board intervened in a Strike Force case in January, asking an investigator to refrain from seizing his personal vehicle if his daughter was apprehended driving it.

Manila (Bud) Shaver had been told that the vehicle might have been used in a home invasion in Hudson, Wis., involving his daughter's boyfriend, according to police documents obtained Thursday.

The daughter was arrested by St. Paul police later in January on a drug charge, but instead of the vehicle being impounded and searched, it was released to Shaver, who is also chief of the West St. Paul Police Department.

Shaver also reportedly directed deputies to target his daughter's boyfriend.

A Strike Force investigator, John McManus, also disclosed in a police report filed in February that Shaver had "asked him for a favor" -- to make his daughter's boyfriend "a priority" for investigation so Shaver could "get" the boyfriend "out of his daughter's life."

Shaver declined comment for our piece last week, and is keeping his lips sealed today.