Council Member Robin Wonsley: Minneapolis police contract must include permanent, robust reforms

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In June 2020, a month after the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, Mayor Jacob Frey laid out the barriers to a transformative overhaul of policing in Minneapolis: “Mayors and chiefs have been hamstrung for generations because we can’t get that necessary culture shift because we have both difficulty terminating and disciplining officers … [so] let me be very clear: We’re going after the police union [and] the police union contract.”

Fast-forward to 2024, and Frey has reversed course on his claims that the police contract is a “nearly impenetrable barrier” to disciplining bad cops like Derek Chauvin. Now the mayor claims that the responsibility for reforming the Minneapolis Police Department solely lies with Chief Brian O’Hara and that the police contract has nothing to do with it.

We heard the same promises throughout 2021 from Frey and his allies opposing ballot Question 2: that former Chief Medaria Arradondo would single-handedly reform the MPD. Instead, Arradondo promptly retired after the 2021 election.

I supported O’Hara’s appointment because of his extensive experience overseeing the implementation of a consent decree in Newark, N.J. Even if O’Hara genuinely wants to end the MPD’s long history of violence, racism and misogyny toward our communities, declaring systemic and transformational change to be his task alone is setting him up for failure. The people of Minneapolis don’t need a future scapegoat for Mayor Frey. They need accountability.

For the last four years, Frey has dragged his feet on undertaking the robust reforms he promised Minneapolis residents in the aftermath of the Floyd murder. By refusing to proactively use his authority to rein in a Police Department that continues to operate as if it is above the law, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice have had to step in and do the mayor’s job. For the next several years, the MDHR and DOJ will have the substantial task of getting the MPD back in compliance with human rights and constitutional law.

But residents shouldn’t allow Frey to continue deflecting his police reform responsibilities to the MDHR, the DOJ or Chief O’Hara. Our city leaders must use every tool in the toolbox to make good on their promises of reform — and the police contract is a crucial tool for impactful change.

Last month, the Star Tribune reported on the MPD’s long-running practice of using secretive “coaching” to cover up serious misconduct despite years of claims to the contrary by Frey’s administration. The DOJ previously criticized coaching as part of the MPD’s “fundamentally flawed” discipline system. Instead of ending the abuse of coaching, the proposed contract codifies coaching as nondisciplinary and nonpublic.

Last fall, a Minnesota Reformer exposé on the lax oversight of the MPD’s off-duty work system raised concerns of small business being shaken down. O’Hara described the system as “rife for corruption,” while the DOJ said it undermined accountability and supervision. At the time, Frey vowed that off-duty work would be covered during contract negotiations. But the proposed contract fails to address any part of the MPD off-duty work system.

The proposed contract includes some progress. Eliminating the 70/30 staffing ratio means public safety resources can finally be deployed based on the actual public safety needs of our residents. Expanding civilian investigators will ensure that cases move forward and that our communities get answers while also freeing up officers to focus on critical safety work. In fact, these are all provisions that my office supported and asked Frey’s administration to include. But in the proposed contract, these positive changes will expire in 2025 and 2026 and we’ll be stuck renegotiating them all over again next time, and likely for much more money.

No amount of raises will end the MPD’s staffing shortage because the real barrier is the department’s toxic internal culture. Who wants to work for a police department that’s still denying that it lied after assaulting and unlawfully arresting Jaleel Stallings? And that, despite promises, continues to hire people with dangerous and problematic pasts, surprising even the applicant? And that even with the DOJ consent decree and MHDR settlement agreement, continues to engage in unconstitutional behavior and violate those agreements?

Every single person in Minneapolis deserves to be safe, no matter where they live or what they look like. Frey’s insistence on rubber-stamping a police contract without any meaningful, permanent reforms while at the same time demanding the defunding of community safety by axing transit safety, hate-crime prevention and other public safety workers will leave us all worse off.

Contract negotiations with the police union are an opportunity to finally deliver on the robust and permanent reforms Mayor Frey promised Minneapolis residents in 2020. Anything less is unacceptable.

Robin Wonsley is a member of the Minneapolis City Council representing Ward 2.