Nominee for Minneapolis public safety commissioner shares his own encounters with police

Recently, I asked Hennepin County Chief Judge Todd Barnette about the most impactful encounter he'd had with police.

He leaned back in his chair and nodded.

"Which time?" he said.

Every Black man I know has a story about the time they thought an interaction with police might lead to tragedy.

Barnette, 57, who is Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's pick to become the city's next community safety commissioner, is no exception.

He was 16 years old, and he'd been driving in his native Washington, D.C., shortly after he'd received his license, when a city squad car roared by him on a tight street and suddenly stopped.

"From what I could see, he was infuriated and he's walking up [to my car], I could see him in my mirror," Barnette told me. "He is walking up to my car with his hand on his gun. … And he accused me of almost hitting him. He jumped out. I just didn't, I didn't see him."

It's important to know how the potential face of public safety views, well, public safety at the granular level. Those perceptions are shaped by experiences — experiences that Black, Indigenous and people of color throughout the city have endured at disproportionate rates.

The Minneapolis City Council will decide about the confirmation of Barnette. But it's naive to assume the city's approach to policing in the years ahead is solely a local issue. Since the murder of George Floyd, the world has continued to watch and wait to see what Minneapolis will do to fulfill all those lofty promises surrounding a police force that has been outed as habitually and historically violent, discriminatory, aggressive and unethical by scathing state and federal reports.

The tenure of Barnette's predecessor, Cedric Alexander, was brief and filled with controversy. But Barnette's arrival comes with commendations and recommendations from community members who've worked with him in the past. He helped organize the Derek Chauvin murder trial and the logistics attached to that proceeding. And his background — he was a public defender for more than a decade and his father battled addiction while he was growing up — seems relevant if the goal is to help connect the dots between local police officers and a community that has reason to doubt them.

In my time with Barnette, I could sense he understands the role but also the limitations of his position.

"Our police department is at the end of the road," he said, as he held up his fingers to represent five different government departments he hopes to unify. "Our neighborhood safety is at the beginning of the road. We need to lift this part up in terms of crime prevention and our approaches so people don't have this interaction with police. … Can we have the capacity to do it? Do we have the funding to do it?

"Let's get going. I think we've seen that around the nation. But I think here, it's about trying to do it differently."

But I'm worried about Barnette. In recent years, a multitude of Black folks in the Twin Cities and beyond have been asked to shield predominantly white organizations and institutions from backlash in a turbulent climate.

Barnette, however, can't fix policing. Any expectation that one human being will repair the problems — especially in a place that seems to believe the eradication of the bad apples is the solution and not the dismantling and reimagining of the system itself — is disingenuous.

That's why I asked Barnette if he's certain he's not just a Black shield for the mayor, someone who might be asked to offer unattainable solutions that demand far more than a community safety commissioner can deliver. Barnette said he didn't have to ask the mayor that question to understand the job.

"We're in America," Barnette said. "Race is always a part of it. I'm here to be the commissioner, if confirmed, and do the best job I can."

I hope that's sufficient.

I'm not certain that it will be.

Barnette said he wants to do his part to encourage change, even if the change is minute.

That's good. Because I don't believe the contributions that shape a community are complicated. Change simply requires genuine individuals to do the right thing.

Every time.

And if Barnette can always reflect on how he felt in that car when he was a teenager and he saw those flashing lights behind him, he can serve a community that has been subjected to unfair scrutiny and treatment from some of its public servants. But if he ever forgets that feeling — the allure of power can corrupt the purity of our intentions — he'll fall short of the effect he envisions.

"Did I treat you fairly?" Barnette said when I asked him what he believes success will mean in his role.

"Was I fair? There is a lot of focus on the transformation of the Police Department. But we also have to worry about, 'Did we give people the tools that they need?' … I hope when I look back, I'll be able to say, 'I did the best I could. I made a difference.'"

Myron Medcalf is a local columnist for Star Tribune and recipient of the 2022 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for general column writing.