Star Tribune
Citing rampant gun violence, Minneapolis police relax pursuit policy
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara has loosened the department’s pursuit policy to allow officers to chase fleeing suspects involved in certain firearm-related offenses, a change he says is meant to help curb rampant gun violence.
Under the new policy, a pursuit can be initiated when a person illegally discharges or points a weapon at someone — even in situations that result in no physical harm. Previous guidelines placed strict parameters on when officers could request approval to engage in a pursuit, often requiring that there be a victim.
“You could have a scenario — which has happened — where police are present and someone starts shooting a gun off in the air from a car, takes off and gets onto the highway and they can’t chase,” O’Hara said in an interview Friday. “That doesn’t send the right message. And I don’t think it meets community expectations.”
The change, which went into effect May 2, carves out new exceptions for weapons offenses that O’Hara believes will provide more clarity for how officers should handle various situations. As before, authorization for any pursuit must be granted by a supervisor who will weigh the “necessity for apprehension” against the risk to officers and the public.
Minneapolis police still won’t chase teens for joyriding or property crimes, for example, without an underlying threat of violence.
The policy revisions follow years of increasingly tighter restrictions on vehicle pursuits after a series of high-profiles crashes in the Twin Cities metro that elected leaders said unnecessarily put lives in danger.
Some police reform advocates questioned why O’Hara would make such a change without first consulting the community — particularly at a time when the department is seeking to rebuild trust in the midst of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights settlement agreement.
“It is not the time to be relaxing the pursuit policy,” said Dave Bicking, vice president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “This just sets us up for more tragedy.”
In a 2019 case, 50-year-old Jose Angel Madrid Salcido of Minneapolis was mortally injured when an unlicensed driver fleeing a police stop smashed the car he was sitting in, pinning Salcido inside.
Later that year , MPD overhauled its pursuit policy so that officers could only give chase in situations in which they believed a suspect had committed or was about to commit “a serious and violent felony or gross misdemeanor,” such as murder and attempted murder, sex crimes, kidnapping, carjacking and arson.
However, it allowed for a pursuit if the suspect’s driving was “so flagrantly reckless that the driver would pose an imminent and life-threatening danger to the public if not apprehended.”
Mayor Jacob Frey vowed to re-examine the policy following the 2021 death of Leneal Frazier, an innocent motorist struck and killed at a North Side intersection by a Minneapolis police officer who was chasing a carjacking suspect.
Former officer Brian Cummings was driving nearly 80 mph on residential streets when he struck Frazier’s SUV at the intersection of N. Lyndale and 41st avenues. Cummings, a 14-year veteran on the force, was charged three months after the collision with second-degree manslaughter and criminal vehicular homicide. He pleaded guilty in April to criminal vehicular homicide and is expected to be sentenced June 22.
An MPD spokesman noted at the time that the pursuit was sanctioned under department policy because the driver was suspected of multiple violent felonies. But Cummings also blew through a red light, charges said, without regard for the safety of bystanders.
The crash resulted in only a minor tweak to pursuit policy language around supervisory review, according to department records.
O’Hara told the Star Tribune that he doesn’t believe residents take issue with what specific crimes officers begin a pursuit over, just whether they conduct them safely.
“Whatever you’re chasing somebody for, it cannot be reckless. That’s the bottom line,” he said, adding that officers are expected to use extreme discretion. “Just because we have a list of criteria, which may allow [you to chase] does not mean a supervisor must authorize it.”
He promised to back decisions by department leaders who choose not to pursue or terminate chases they feel are unsafe.
The new policy directive contributed to last week’s bust of a group of juveniles wanted in connection with a drive-by shooting that damaged the Minneapolis Public Schools administration headquarters.
Officers responded to 911 calls reporting about a dozen shots fired in the 2100 block of Girard Avenue N. on the afternoon of May 15, and gunfire pierced a café window at the Davis Center.
Surveillance footage and a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter helped track four teens who led police on a chase in a stolen Kia into south Minneapolis, occasionally hanging out of the car’s windows. At some point, the minors jumped out of the car and fled on foot.
O’Hara was nearby when he heard radio traffic about the pursuit and rushed to the scene. He joined responding officers who were handcuffing one boy on the sidewalk, according to body camera footage released by the police. The 80-second video, first obtained by KSTP-TV, shows O’Hara running through an alley ahead of two subordinates and chasing down another juvenile suspect on foot.
Investigators found two firearms inside the stolen Kia. Three minors were detained, while two boys — a 14- and 15-year-old — were later charged by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. Juvenile records for those under 16 are not public.
“These juveniles are a danger to themselves and to anyone who happens to be around them,” O’Hara said in a news release hailing the arrests.
Under previous guidelines, officers would not have been permitted to engage in that chase.
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
Much of the wood waste in the metro area is sent to a processing site near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, where it is stored before being burned to produce energy at the St. Paul Cogeneration plant downtown.
Cogeneration provides power to about half of downtown and was originally built to manage elm-tree waste in response to Dutch elm disease. The plant burns approximately 240,000 tons of wood each year, according to Michael Auger, senior vice president of District Energy in St. Paul.
Jim Calkins, a certified landscape horticulturalist who has been involved in discussions about the problem, said he thinks using wood for energy is the most logical solution.
“The issue is, we don’t have enough facilities to be able to handle that, at least in the Twin Cities,” Calkins said. “So there has to be dollars to support transportation to get the wood to those places, or in some cases, to upgrade some of those facilities such that they are able to burn wood.”
Plans are in place to convert Koda Energy in Shakopee to burn ash wood, which could potentially handle around 40,000 tons of wood waste, but that would take around two years to establish, according to Klapperich.
In some areas of the state, cities have resorted to burning excess wood waste because they felt they had no other option. Open burning wood releases a lot of carbon into the air, Klapperich said.
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