Minneapolis mayor, police chief share vision for mending community relations

In a news conference brimming with optimism but short on a finalized plan of action, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Medaria Arradondo shared their vision Thursday for healing the profound divisions between law enforcement and communities of color.

Making their first public appearance together since Frey was sworn in to the city's top office, the two leaders were eager to present a unified front on issues ranging from the department's body camera policy to whether the city needs more police officers.

At its current staffing levels, officers on certain shifts find themselves scrambling from call to call, with little time to get out of their squad cars and mingle with community members, Frey said. He proposed "narrowing their beats" to give them more time to build relationships.

Arradondo, who last summer inherited a police force beset by calls for reform, said it isn't enough to "put a cop on every corner."

"It's important that our officers get to build those trusting relationships with our city," he told reporters gathered at the North Market. "Unity to me also means trust; it also means accountability."

He said he is working to address critics' concerns. As an example, he pointed to the department tightening its policy on the use of body cameras after a city audit report released last fall found that officers were rarely turning their devices on.

Arradondo has said in the past that Minneapolis, like police departments across the country, needs to rethink its approach to fighting crime. Not every emergency call, he has said, requires a police response.

Arradondo's predecessor, Janeé Harteau, had a complicated relationship with former Mayor Betsy Hodges, with whom she clashed at times over the department's direction. Harteau was ousted last summer in the wake of the shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond by officer Mohamed Noor, while Hodges lost her re-election bid in November.

Frey said he would like to see more officers living in the city after an analysis revealed that fewer than one in 10 are Minneapolis residents.

While crime rates continue to fall across most of the city, gun-related violence remains stubbornly persistent in some neighborhoods.

At a roundtable discussion that followed the news conference, Rob Hanson, executive director of the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition, said one solution might be assigning more officers to high-crime areas.

"I think it is also important to have a police force that is also a bit more visible, but not in an adversarial way," Hanson said.

Hanson and other merchants on the North Side's main commercial artery have for months pushed the department to open a substation at the Hawthorn Crossings strip mall — which residents and police say turns into an open-air drug market at some times of the day.

He complained of brazen drug dealers who openly peddle their products mere feet from businesses along Broadway, driving away potential customers. Dealers are usually sent scattering by passing police patrols, only to return minutes later.

Broadway is also the dividing line between territories claimed by two rival gang factions — calling themselves the "High End" and the "Low End" — that authorities say are responsible for most of the North Side's violence.

Also in attendance were Manu Lewis, a senior outreach worker; Russom Solomon, chairman of the West Bank Safety Center, and Sa'Lesha Beeks, an anti-violence advocate and daughter of Birdell Beeks, a 58-year-old woman whose death in a drive-by shooting two summers ago galvanized the city's campaign against gun violence.

The two leaders acknowledged the difficult task of balancing public safety with the kind of community policing that is supposed to be part of the department's new approach.

Arradondo said earning back public trust is one of his top priorities, particularly in minority communities that have been alienated as a result of past police tactics.

To that end, he said great care is being taken to ensure officers are properly trained and, as department policy requires, are using force only as a last resort to defuse potentially dangerous suspects.

He has vowed to seek community input on major issues.

The debate around police use of force was reignited last month after officers shot an 18-year-old robbery suspect who brought a knife into an interview room and started stabbing himself. Police union officials hailed the officers' actions as "heroic," which rankled some advocates, who argued that police should have done more to help a man who appeared to be a threat only to himself.

The man, Marcus Fischer, has been transferred to the Hennepin County jail, where he is awaiting trial on charges of first-degree assault and first-degree robbery.

Several speakers at the roundtable discussion emphasized the importance of communication between police and the community.

"Sometimes, it's networking through people with a voice to get through to people who might not otherwise want to sit at the table with police," said Fourth Precinct inspector Aaron Biard.

In laying out their priorities, Frey and Arradondo also addressed the nationwide opioid crisis that has ravaged parts of Minneapolis.

Both said that about 125 officers who work in the hardest-hit neighborhoods will soon start carrying the lifesaving drug naloxone, or Narcan. The move will expand a pilot program underway in the Third Precinct, which has some of the largest concentrations of overdoses in the city.

The department had long resisted calls to outfit its officers with the opioid antidote, previously arguing that firefighters and paramedics were usually the first to respond to overdose scenes, not officers.