MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara is pleased with the status report, one year into the implementation of the Department of Human Rights’ settlement agreement, the state’s version of a consent decree to reform the police force.
“What I am most proud of is its very clear this police department has done more in one year, I would argue, than any other department in the first year of a consent decree,” according to O’Hara.
According to the report, the department has nearly cleared a “unacceptable” backlog of unresolved misconduct complaints.
Furthermore, the report states that the city and the MPD made more progress toward laying the groundwork for long-term reform in the first year of monitoring than nearly any other jurisdiction.
Michael Harrison is the panel’s leader in charge of monitoring progress. He emphasizes that this is a “foundational” period, with the majority of time spent drafting policies.
“They have to lay the foundation that the rest of the reforms will sit on and depend on,”
The report does highlight some officers’ distrust of the process, with concerns that the department would use new policies to get them in trouble.
“That is a natural concern that cops everywhere have because they feel like it is intrinsically tied to discipline somehow,” according to O’Hara.
Overall, Harrison was impressed with MPD’s compliance with the plan.
“In other places we’ve seen more pushback, more denial of, ‘We don’t need this,’ they have all types of things to say about it,” Harrison referred to. “At the point we started (with Minneapolis), people have been working hand in hand.”