Star Tribune
How are Minneapolis police doing?
Public safety officials in Minneapolis announced a new digital tool Wednesday they say will help collect residents’ feedback and provide a more holistic picture of community perception of the city’s Police Department.
Minneapolis started publishing targeted advertisements on social media for its “community perception survey” at the beginning of the month, designed to solicit voluntary, anonymous input on law enforcement and public safety. The city will publish the findings on its website and use the data to assess what is and isn’t working in its effort to reshape the department’s image and rebuild trust.
Minneapolis will pay $500,000 over the next three years to Tel Aviv-based Zencity Technologies to implement the data-collection tool, according to a contract passed by the Minneapolis City Council in October.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara in a news conference. O’Hara said he’s been working for the past year to bring such a tool to the city as part of the effort to move into a new era. “Rebuilding trust requires us to listen to our residents — to hear what they have to say about what crime and public safety and policing looks like in their neighborhoods.”
Noting the department is understaffed, O’Hara said police are busy rushing to and from emergencies, and they don’t have as much time to hold meaningful conversations and build relationships with the people they serve. He said the survey won’t replace human interactions, but it will help “fill in that gap.”
The survey tool will measure perception on areas including safety of neighborhoods, the fairness of the justice process and whether the Police Department “meets the needs” of residents, said Michael Simon, chief strategy officer for Zencity.
Simon said the survey will be available in seven languages and his company hopes to get a representative sample of about 10,000 respondents per year, with a diversity of demographic voices. “We want to see Minneapolis residents participate, and the more people who do, the higher quality the input is that this agency will get.”
The advertisement will appear on websites such as Facebook, Instagram and local news pages, he said.
Sample questions provided by the city include: “When it comes to the threat of crime, how safe do you feel in your neighborhood?” “Is Minneapolis PD an open and transparent organization?” And: “What is the number one issue or problem on your block or in your neighborhood that you would like the police to deal with? Please be specific.”
Zencity also works with hundreds of other cities in the United States, including Chicago, Phoenix, Seattle and San Diego, according to a news release from the Police Department.
Endorsing the new platform alongside O’Hara, Minneapolis’ new commissioner of Community Safety, Toddrick Barnette, said the Zencity tool will help promote the voices of everyday citizens in shaping policing.
“I’m fully supportive of anything that we can do to increase engagement and provide an opportunity for our residents to provide input on what they expect from their government,” he said. “The responses will help us learn and understand priorities so we as leaders can make informed decisions that are transparent.”
The fledgling Minneapolis “safety-beyond-policing” department, which has been accused of mismanaging contracts with violence interrupters, is again under scrutiny for requesting nearly $1 million for a business owned by the sister of one of its staff members.
Unanswered questions about the Black Business Enterprises Fund and the purpose of the contract have repeatedly delayed a City Council vote on the contract.
Neighborhood Safety Director Luana Nelson-Brown came before the council’s administration oversight committee on Oct. 7 to argue for giving the business a one-year, $992,400 contract for “capacity building and compliance consulting services.” Black Business Enterprises Fund would use the money to employ a team of 17 experts to coach violence interrupters on financial literacy and how to comply with government accounting requirements.
“A good financial system allows organizations to track their spending accurately, ensuring that funds are used properly and enabling them to prepare regular reports that meet government expectations,” Nelson-Brown said. “It also streamlines invoice reimbursements, which allows us to make more timely payments, and it is necessary for audits and evaluation of program success. I also want to note that these are all things that have been identified as weaknesses.”
Nelson-Brown said the need for the contract is underscored by a lawsuit that accused the city of arbitrarily awarding millions of dollars to violence prevention groups without proper accounting, as well as the “Safe and Thriving Communities” report on building a comprehensive model of public safety. The city commissioned the Harvard University report after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
City Council members have also been pushing for greater accountability in the Neighborhood Safety Department, particularly after a whistleblower complaint shared with council members this year questioned the relationships between contract recipients and department staff. One of the whistleblower’s claims had to do with Black Business Enterprises Fund owner Nancy Korsah, and her sister, Neighborhood Safety Department staffer Georgia Korsah.
On Oct. 7, council members asked Nelson-Brown about that relationship, whether the business had experience working with nonprofits — particularly those that provide violence prevention services — and whether it is an organization capable of helping others build theirs.
Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw said she wasn’t aware of what the Black Business Enterprises Fund had done besides “having a gala.” Council Member Jeremiah Ellison said a review of the organization’s website raised a “red flag.”
A motorcyclist set off a three-vehicle crash on a central Minnesota highway and was killed, officials said Monday.
The wreck occurred about 10:40 p.m. Sunday north of Royalton on Hwy. 10, the State Patrol said.
The motorcyclist was heading east on Hwy. 10 and struck a fish house being pulled by a pickup truck driver. The motorcyclist, a 27-year-old man from Sauk Rapids, Minn., was thrown from his bike and struck a median pillar.
A car heading in the same direction hit the motorcycle.
Occupying the pickup were a 46-year-old driver from Rice, Minn., and a 43-year-old passenger, also from Rice. The car’s driver, a 34-year-old woman from Cobalt, was her vehicle’s only occupant.
Identities of all the people involved in the crash have yet to be released, and there is no word yet on whether anyone was injured other than the motorcyclist.
A motorist died Sunday morning after striking a deer on a northwest metro freeway and then getting rear-ended by a second driver, the State Patrol said.
Julie Terwey, 60, of South Haven, Minn., was driving east on Interstate 94 near Brockton Lane in Maple Grove when she struck a deer at about 5:25 a.m. She was stopped in the center lane when she was hit from behind by a second driver, the patrol said.
Terwey, who was wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene, the patrol said.
The driver who collided with Terway’s Ford Escape, Jordan Land, was taken to a hospital with noncritical injuries, the patrol said.
Land, 32, of Becker, Minn., was wearing a seat belt, the patrol said.
Alcohol was not a factor in the predawn crash, the patrol said.
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