The Minneapolis Police Department reported that over the weekend (Thursday-Sunday) three (3) murders and seven (7) other shootings had occurred in the city.
“This weekend we’ve seen an unacceptable level of crime and violence”
Chief O’Hara
These violent crimes, coupled with the reality that his department remains critically understaffed (43% below authorized strength of 888 officers), persuaded Chief of Police Brian O’Hara to call an emergency meeting of his command staff and outside law enforcement partners to formulate a plan to supplement law enforcement in the city with additional outside agency assistance.
“Police are absolutely necessary to try to prevent, respond to, and keep people safe.”
Chief O’Hara
The increased level of violent crime and the Chief’s response both directly counter the progressive narrative that “crime is down” in Minneapolis and that the alternatives to policing touted by city leaders for several years have improved safety in Minneapolis.
The fact is Minneapolis leaders have been ignoring the recruitment and retention crisis they created in their police department while hoping against hope that they could turn around the disastrous crime landscape without a functioning police department. It hasn’t gone well.
And the longer they try, without addressing the reason (a lack of political support) officers no longer want to work in Minneapolis, the more likely we all face the prospect of having to accept the “new normal,” that is uncontrolled and random violent crime in our state’s signature city.
Sadly, it appears citizens are growing weary of crime and the city’s lack of response to it. Data from the Minneapolis Crime Dashboard indicates that despite violent crime trending up, calls for police service are trending down since 2019. (See trend lines in the following chart tracking violent crimes and priority one calls for service).
As the chart below shows, using 2019 as a reference to the “old normal,” violent crime in Minneapolis through the first 6 months of 2024 remains 28.5% higher while priority one calls for service have dropped by 16%.
Specific violent crimes all remain significantly higher than the same period in 2019 — with murder up 113%, robbery up 52%, and aggravated assaults up 32%.
Those who live, work, or visit Minneapolis deserve more from city leaders. Their reaction to the civil unrest of 2020 was to abandon common sense and govern to the activist voices. City leaders discredited their police department and in doing so they ruined the most valuable public safety resource they had.
As a result, they helped create a “new normal” of unacceptable violent crime and a populace too tired to care.
Things can change for the better, of course, and it’s in our collective best interest that Minneapolis turns things around. City leaders need to immediately stop governing to the activist voices and demonstrate to the citizens that city government supports and values the critical role the police department must play in the city’s public safety.