The neighborhood organizations of Kenwood, Lowry Hill, East Isles and Cedar-Isles-Dean jointly cohosted a public safety informational meeting at the Kenwood Community Center on Friday, January 26. Guest speakers included Mayor Jacob Frey, Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto, Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell, Fifth Precinct Inspector Christie Nelson, Council Member Katie Cashman and community safety walking group organizer Aileen Johnson. Despite being a Friday evening, it was a standing room-only crowd, estimated at roughly 200 people. The audience was attentive, energized and engaged.
Speaking first, Mayor Frey touted recent reductions of 20-25% in several violent crime categories, along with an overall decrease across most categories. He acknowledged, however, that a “massive” spike in crime during 2021 and 2022 meant that even with these decreases, the city is still far removed from the pre-pandemic standards set in 2018 and 2019.
While the number of Minneapolis police officers remains at a troublingly low level, the mayor expressed confidence in his current public safety leadership team, including community safety commissioner Toddrick Barnette and Police Chief Brian O’Hara. As for replenishing the ranks of officers, Frey said the effort would require a multipronged approach, including active recruitment of promising candidates, approval of a new union contract, mounting a publicity campaign and taking steps to retain existing officers.
Newly elected council member Katie Cashman spoke next, stating that public safety was her top priority. Cashman said she had done two nighttime “ride alongs” with local police officers and touted the new MPD consent decree as an important reform tool. She stated that a new union contract is the best way to get more police officers in the city, and also reported that while downtown appears to have made significant progress in improving public safety, Uptown needs substantial improvement.
As a general matter, the audience signaled broad and enthusiastic support for the guest speakers. The only two deviations from this were related to comments by Cashman. In the first instance, Cashman — on her own initiative — raised the council’s recently-passed Gaza ceasefire resolution, which she voted for. When she prefaced her comments by stating that some constituents had suggested the conflict was not the council’s business, the crowd erupted into loud and sustained applause, repeating that applause a second time after Cashman restarted her comments.
In the second instance, Cashman received several pointed audience questions about police funding, including whether she supported defunding the police, and whether she would vote for recruitment and retention bonuses if given the opportunity. Cashman said she did not support defunding the police, but hesitated on the question of bonuses, eventually stating that she would support them if “the data supports it.” Asked to cite an example, she spoke of one initiative that would make payments to officers after a delay of several years, but cited no examples in which she would support immediate bonus payments. That resulted in some audible dissention. At the end of the gathering, she acknowledged that more money was needed for officers, but also took pains to note she was not part of the city’s negotiating team for the policeunion contract.
Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell spoke next, outlining the multi-year process for becoming a Minneapolis police officer, emphasizing the great need for additional officers, and the importance of creating recruitment and retention incentives.
Fifth Precinct Inspector Christie Nelson followed. In a detailed and data-driven presentation, she noted double-digit decreases in violent crime categories for the beginning of this year versus last year. Property crimes remain a problem, and Inspector
Nelson again emphasized the importance of taking commonsense steps like not leaving unoccupied vehicles running, and not leaving valuables in plain view.
On a completely upbeat note, Inspector Nelson reported that a precinct officer recently spotted and apprehended a suspected copper thief; a subsequent search of his vehicle found a vast quantity of spooled copper wiring, which should give some satisfaction to residents of areas that have suddenly gone dark due to the theft of streetlight wires.
Next up, Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto reported that violent crime in parks remains low but flat, while property crimes decreased by 25%. He also stressed the importance of removing valuables from parked vehicles, including credit cards(!). In a hat-tip to final speaker Aileen Johnson, Chief Ohotto cited Loring Park as an example of how collaboration between community organizations and law enforcement can be transformative. Highlighting a Loring Park safety walking group started by Ms. Johnson, Chief Ohotto said that while Loring Park had long been one of the most violence-prone parks in the city, it was now “not even close” to being in the top tier.
Safety walking group founder Aileen Johnson was the night’s final speaker, and reported there are now eleven such groups operating in the city, including Lowry Hill and East Isles. A new Kenwood group will hold its inaugural walk on February 8, at 5:30 p.m., meeting at the Kenwood School playground (not the train park). Along with creating a culture of safety consciousness and neighborhood involvement, Ms. Johnson said that an important collateral benefit are the friendships these outings foster.
