Peter Rickmyer, Level 3 sex offender, hollers discrimination

Peter Rickmyer, Level 3 sex offender, says that people are discriminating against him

​Peter Rickmyer, the perpetual Jordan neighborhood gadfly, has filed a complaint with the Minneapolis Department of Human Rights claiming he's being discriminated against for his sexual orientation.

Um... what sexual orientation is that? Rickmyer has, after all, been convicted a number of times for molesting children. Last we heard, that was a criminal problem -- not a sexual orientation.

Peter Rickmyer is known for filing a huge amount of legal paperwork against people in the Jordan neighborhood who have upset him, including John Hoff, the author of the Johnny Northside blog, a church lady who told him to stay away from the church's groups for children, and members of the local neighborhood group, the Jordan Area Community Council. We wrote about his escapades back in March.

Rickmyer has filed so many rambling complaints that in May, a judge labeled him a frivoulous litigant and prohibited him from filing another lawsuit. Now, Rickmyer has found a loophole.

His latest endeavor is filing a complaint with the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights. In it, he alleges that the Jordan Area Community Council treated him differently based on "his sexual orientation and disability."

"That guy is so far out in left field he's out of the ballgame," says Jeff Anderson, the local attorney who prosecutes Catholic Church sex abuse cases. "Those laws are designed to protect people against people like him."

Normally complaints based on sexual orientation are to protect sexual minorities who would fall under the GLBT banner.

"To my knowledge, it is not meant to provide sex offenders statutory protections, when they do not identify themselves as a GLBT member under sexual orientation," says John Klassen, a Minneapolis attorney who often represents minorities in civil rights cases. "Unlawful sexual predilections are not protected."

Even more odd is the fact that Rickmyer has singled out one individual to name in the discrimination charge, Michael "Kip" Browne -- who is a civil rights attorney. Browne, a JACC board member, works at the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

Odd, yes, but in Rickmyer's world, it's also understandable. The problems have long been brewing. For years, Rickmyer has shown up at community meetings, where he often makes statements about children--needing to protect children, fears about traffic causing too much smog, studies that show children in North Minneapolis have suffered from post-traumatic stress.

The latest stems from an incident we documented, when two board members of the JOrdan group--Browne was not one of them--visited Rickmyer to ask him to stop saying that he was on the neighborhood group's public safety committee. Rickmyer responded by trying to get restraining orders against Browne and another board member, and when that didn't work, by filing a lawsuit. Johnny Northside blogged about the whole thing, and Rickmyer can't seem to get over it.

Here is what Rickmyer says about Browne in the civil rights discrimination complaint:

... the Respondent has infiltrated the Hennepin County Judicial system and the local government agencies, such as CPED and the Police Department to humiliate the Complainant and has influenced independent bloggers to disseminate fradulent information about the Complainant in regards to his sex offender status.

We put in a call to the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department to find out when this complaint will be resolved, but it was after hours and we haven't yet heard back. Will update with new information.