Brehm: Minneapolis continues to fail on public safety

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In 2022, I wrote an opinion piece for the Minnesota Star Tribune arguing that “any effort that distracts from dealing with the immediate, severe and existential crisis of crime in Minneapolis is a deep disservice to its citizens. … It continues to experience a historically high number of homicides, shootings and assaults. ... City officials would be wise to maintain a laser focus on restoring public safety.”

Expectedly, the Minneapolis City Council, now controlled by a radical majority often aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), have proved not particularly interested in this conservative columnist’s public policy counsel. It has instead prioritized condemning Israel, running businesses out of town with loony environmental and labor proposals and expanding their own city hall staff. The results of this unserious approach to governance by this group of political misfits have been rough.

A recent report prepared by the Council on Criminal Justice shows that violent crime is dropping dramatically to below pre-pandemic levels in many major urban areas across the country. In 2024, the study found, there were, on average, 6% fewer homicides than there were in 2019. And sexual assaults, robberies, residential burglaries and drug offenses last year dropped at least 19% below 2019 numbers. America’s cities, it seems, are generally getting safer. But not Minneapolis.

According to a recent Star Tribune analysis, violent crime remains substantially elevated above pre-COVID levels in the City of Lakes, with murder up 58%, auto theft 123% higher, and aggravated assault 30% more common than in 2019. Those numbers should give pause to anyone who thinks Minneapolis is doing just fine.

It gives me no joy to once again write about the high rates of lawlessness that continue to haunt Minnesota’s largest city, a place I care deeply about, especially since my parents still live there. I spent most of my legal career working downtown and loved it. I lived in northeast Minneapolis for years and treasured that time. And I still like popping over to Minneapolis — which I do a lot — to visit friends, grab dinner or catch a Twins game. Every Minnesotan should want a vibrant Minneapolis as it’s an economic engine the entire state benefits from.

But we are doing the city no favors by pretending the crime crisis that plagued Minneapolis in the first half of this decade somehow has been resolved by the second. The data is what it is. Yes, Minneapolis has beautiful parks, a terrific restaurant, arts and theater scene, lovely neighborhoods and a first-rate workforce, but if it continues to lag in the most primary of people’s concerns, public safety, the trend of residents and businesses moving elsewhere will continue to keep Minneapolis on a direction of decline.

So how can Minneapolis do better? Above all, it needs to hire more police officers. A lot more. While at the beginning of 2020 there were more than 800 sworn officers in Minneapolis, that number in 2024 sat at a dangerously low 570. While that’s eight more officers than the city had in 2023, meager 1.4% annual officer growth won’t restore the Minneapolis Police Department to the numbers it needs to be at any time soon.

Some progress is being made. The city wisely approved much-needed pay raises for its officers. And the MPD recently welcomed the largest class of recruits to the department in years. Mayor Jacob Frey deserves credit for supporting Minneapolis law enforcement, which has boosted morale on the force, and for rejecting the defund the police movement many in his party supported.

But too many members of the Minneapolis City Council remain unabashedly anti-police. Who wants to do an already dangerous job reporting to a governing body controlled by people opposed to your profession? MPD will never be able to maximize new hires with a council so hostile to its ranks. As Ward 3 Council Member Michael Rainville, a staunch supporter of men and women in blue and one of the finest public servants I know, told me: “They don’t say defund the police anymore. They just do it.”

The extreme City Council majority demoralizes and denigrates law enforcement in more subtle but still effective ways, such as cutting money for a police recruitment campaign and defunding the highly visible and effective horse mounted patrol. These are utterly insane decisions, unless the goal is to abolish the police department through attrition, and then they make complete sense.

To make Minneapolis safer, these DSA kooks on the council need to be fired in November and replaced with men and women that want to run the city well. With that kind of change at the top, a job as a Minneapolis cop will look a lot more attractive.

The city also must eliminate its dangerous homeless encampments, which alone produced 15 of Minneapolis’ murders last year. Most living there are not just suffering from lacking a place to stay, but from severe mental health and addiction issues. As a recovering alcoholic, I have sincere compassion for those struggling with this disease so mightily and publicly in our midst, and they deserve help.

But there’s nothing compassionate about allowing these people to remain in communal squalor. Rather, we are enabling their serious psychological conditions by accommodating these dens of drug and alcohol dependence.

Moreover, the encampments signal to the community a sense of chaos and an anything goes approach. That kind of anarchic environment just encourages more criminality. Getting rid of them will show Minneapolis is resolute about restoring law and order. Minneapolis needs to be a place where rules reign again.

When I ran the Medtronic TC 10 Mile race last October, I was struck on that fall day by what a beautiful city Minneapolis really is. I had never taken so much of it on by foot before. It’s a striking place. And I was touched by the thousands of people lined up along the route cheering for complete strangers like me. It takes a special kind of community to do that.

But we all need to remain clear-eyed that Minneapolis is not as safe as it should be. And that’s thanks to the reckless majority sitting on its City Council. Voters in Minneapolis have a chance to replace them this year. And they should.