Chief O’Hara Goes on Press Tour to Mislead the Public
In a recent interview on Fox9, the Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department gave several misleading statements regarding the City Council’s investments in public safety in the 2025 city budget.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara made a number of misleading statements when he joined Fox9 for a segment this past Wednesday, December 18th. “The Police Department in Minneapolis, the members that work here, have become experts at doing more with less.” This is not the first time he has used this line, which feeds upon fears that the Minneapolis Police Department has lost resources. But it’s not true. The Minneapolis Police Department has seen an increase in spending every year Chief O’Hara has been on the force. And this trend isn’t recent to Chief O’Hara’s tenure. MPD’s 2025 $229 million budget is 50% bigger than its $152 million budget just ten years ago. Despite what Chief O’Hara wants the public to believe, MPD has not had the chance to practice doing more with less:
Bar graph showing yearly increase of MPD spending in the Minneapolis City Budget between 2021 and 2025.
In the Fox9 appearance, Chief O’Hara bemoaned the reprioritization of $631,000 within MPD. What he failed to mention was that $631,000 of the money he claimed the City Council took from MPD was specifically earmarked for five civilian investigators, who would focus their efforts on helping MPD clear the more than 5,000 open cases currently on their plate. That is an investment in our public safety that his department should be celebrating, not condemning.
Mpls for the Many Chair Chelsea McFarren had this to say about Chief O’Hara’s recent misleading statements regarding City Council’s investments in public safety:
“Chief O’Hara was brought on to give a new face to MPD, but what his recent press tour has demonstrated is that while the face may be new, the approach to communicating with the public hasn’t changed. Either the Chief of Police understands the City budget process and is intentionally misleading the public or after two years on the force, he’s still unclear how the City works. Unfortunately either way, Minneapolis residents are suffering from a lack of transparent leadership under Mayor Frey and his appointed Chief. Our communities deserve leaders who are willing to have honest discussions about our investments into public safety, not weaponize misleading information to further their own political agenda.”