Star Tribune
I ‘could have been clearer’ in comments about officer’s stun-gun incident
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Monday night that he “could have been clearer,” but he did not intentionally mislead the public in statements regarding the hire of an officer accused of a violent assault that was caught on body-worn camera video in a previous job.
Speaking at a news conference, O’Hara acknowledged that he knew months ago that officer Tyler Timberlake had been involved in a “critical incident” in the past. O’Hara also confirmed that he’d been present during the interview process for Timberlake, whose employment with Minneapolis was terminated last week. When the chief released a statement months after signing off on the hire saying he was “extremely concerned” based on what he’d “just learned” about Timberlake, he meant to convey he’d just seen the body camera footage for the first time, he told reporters Monday.
“I had a very visceral reaction to the behavior that I saw on that video,” O’Hara said. “I was shocked and I gave a statement to the media very quickly, and the statement could have been clearer.”
O’Hara vowed to “fix the hiring process so that we do not simply hire people who meet the minimum qualifications, but that we screen in individuals who reflect the values of this community and of this department.” He said the background check for Timberlake took place before he became chief, and he would not have signed off on Timberlake’s hire if he’d first seen the video.
“I accept responsibility for not being clear enough in my initial comments and for not following up to clarify,” O’Hara said. “But again, I had not seen the video.”
O’Hara’s remarks come in response to sharp critiques over the past five days from the police union and law enforcement watchdogs on his handling of Timberlake. Timberlake was charged and later acquitted of assault and battery for repeatedly shooting a stun-gun at a man who appeared to need medical attention in June 2020, when he worked as an officer in Fairfax, VA. The video appeared in national news coverage.
After the Star Tribune first reported on Timberlake’s termination last week, Minneapolis police union president Sherral Schmidt said that O’Hara was pandering to critics when he told reporters back in April that he’d “just learned” of the incident. Schmidt said O’Hara knew about the officer’s past before a story published by the Minnesota Reformer drew attention to it, and that O’Hara had told Timberlake “he would be OK, if he did good work.”
The Star Tribune obtained internal emails that showed Timberlake had informed the department about the stun-gun incident and criminal charges in September 2022 — seven months before O’Hara said he’d just learned about it. A month after the Reformer story, Timberlake sent an email to Mayor Jacob Frey, City Attorney Kristyn Anderson and Community Safety Commissioner Cedric Alexander accusing the chief of defaming him and asking for city officials to look into the matter.
“Chief O’Hara’s recent statements regarding my employment with MPD are factually false and can be proven as such,” wrote Timberlake in the May 15 email. “These statements have been harmful to my reputation by, among other things, implying that the chief had no knowledge of my prior work history or my hiring at MPD when, in fact, he was involved in my hiring.”
In the news conference Monday, O’Hara said he was limited in what he could address because of data laws pertaining to personnel matters. Anderson was present and stopped O’Hara from answering a question about who else in the city was involved in the hire.
O’Hara said he was only an “observer” — not a participant — in Timberlake’s interview, which took place on a “whirlwind” second day on the job.
When pressed on whether he told Timberlake in the interview that he would “be OK, if he did good work,” O’Hara claimed he didn’t recall the specifics of their conversation.
“I was meeting literally hundreds of people in my initial days here,” he said.
O’Hara said he knew Timberlake “was involved in a critical incident.” But, he said, “quite frankly that is unremarkable. Anyone who has been a police officer in a major city, if they’ve been working on the street, they have been active — it would be unusual if you had not been.”
Asked about the union’s defense of Timberlake, O’Hara said “it is disturbing to me that any member of this department could observe the behavior in that video and think that is what we need in this city at this time.”
O’Hara was sworn in as Minneapolis’ 54th police chief last November on the ambitious promise to reduce the surge in violent crime while also rebuilding community trust in the department. Frey hailed O’Hara, a veteran enforcement officer from New Jersey, as a “change-maker” — someone who could navigate the city and its police into a new era.
In his short time in Minneapolis, O’Hara has won praise from some in the department for changing a policy that stopped officers from pursuing suspects — and by appearing in a body camera video chasing down and helping arrest alleged shooters. He’s also positioned himself as capable of stewarding Minneapolis through a complicated federal consent decree, having recently served as a liaison between the Newark Police Department and Justice Department for a similar agreement there.
“I came here to fix problems,” he said Monday. “I became aware of the problems in this hiring process in April and I have been working ever since to address them.”
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings