Minneapolis police boost numbers for the first time in 5 years
MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Police Department has boosted officer numbers for the first time in half a decade.
Minneapolis is seeing its first boost to police numbers in five years, city officials said. In 2024, MPD saw a 133% increase in applications and 76 new hires.
"This is a major shift, and obviously it's a welcomed one," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Mayor Frey and Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the influx of hiring last year means 36 additional police officers out on the streets. The chief said this is a good sign, one that wasn't there when he took the job three years ago.
"Police officers in Minneapolis would tell me, 'If somebody asks me about this department, I'd tell them don't come here, go somewhere else. Everybody's leaving, people hate us,'" said O'Hara.
City officials said the change in attitude comes after historic raises of more than 20% for officers, and aggressively recruiting diverse candidates within the city.
"We've been very intentional about bringing in young people from communities that have not been represented here well before. Today, the overwhelming majority of applicants are people of color," said O'Hara.
It was last week, the Minneapolis City Council approved a consent decree with the Department of Justice after a DOJ report found that MPD unlawfully discriminated against people of color, among other issues in the department.
"It's going into the north side, it's going to Cedar-Riverside, it's going to the south side and finding people that truly want to not just be part of the change, but care deeply about protecting and serving the communities that they already love," said Frey.
Residents can expect quicker response times, and more cops out in the community building relationships, which, in turn, will help solve crimes, Frey said.
"We need to get back to where we were in 2020. We need to take every single shooting in this city and treat it as if it's a murder. We need to get officers back walking the beats in neighborhoods in every precinct, in every corner of the city. We need to get cops checking in on businesses," said O'Hara. "I'm confident that, you know, as we get the numbers up, we will be able to do better."
As of last week, MPD said there are 579 sworn officers. That's down from 922 in March 2019.
O'Hara said he expects to recruit the number of officers funded in the city budget within two or three years. It will be some time, the chief said, for MPD to reach 900 officers again.
