New St. Paul police leadership needs more diversity

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

When St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter selected Axel Henry as the city's new police chief after a nationwide search last November, I had high hopes the popular internal candidate would be able to bring together residents and other key stakeholders to address rising public safety concerns in the midst of an unrelenting and unprecedented violent crime wave that has swept across our capital city.

Sadly, my hopes were dashed within weeks after Henry announced his 12-member senior leadership team, which includes four women, including one Latina, but no African Americans or other people of color.

Within hours of Henry's announcement, several Black city leaders met with him to make their concerns known about the dearth of racial diversity among his top lieutenants, particularly given the fact that the St. Paul Police Department (SPPD) has a long and distinguished history of promoting minority cops from within, including three African American chiefs.

According to local news reports, Henry claimed there were no qualified African American officers to serve on his senior leadership team at this time. However, he promised to revisit the group's concerns in the second or third year of his six-year term.

To my shock and dismay, Carter supported his new police chief's appointments, even though St. Paul's Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by violent crime and have a deep mistrust of law enforcement.

I am also perplexed by Carter's response given that he is a proud alum of Florida A&M, a historically Black university. If anyone should understand the importance of representation, having a seat at the table, it's our mayor, the son of the first African American woman elected to a county board in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, I might not have expected more from Henry if he were your typical Minnesota white male. However, he campaigned for the city's top cop job based on the diversity of his life experiences.

A native of St. Paul, Henry's long-time partner is an African American woman, who has committed her life's work to addressing poverty in the Rondo community, the city's oldest Black neighborhood.

In addition, the couple share two children, who self-identify as Black. As young adults just starting out in life, diversity, equity and inclusion will only become increasingly important to Henry's children as they seek career opportunities with real advancement potential.

In a recent interview with the Star Tribune, Henry also waxed poetically about his love of old school hip-hop music, whose very lyrics often shine a light on Black life in the inner city, including the scourge of police brutality. Did Henry really listen to the music or is he simply now telling the community what he feels they want or need to hear?

Henry's rationale for selecting a nearly all white senior leadership team to lead the SPPD also raises additional questions for me. From 2016 to 2022, he served as the senior commander of the Eastern Patrol District and the Narcotics, Financial Intelligence and Human Trafficking Division. Did Henry not develop, mentor or promote racially diverse teams in these roles as he climbed the ladder to the chief's office? If not, how can he be trusted to do so now?

In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis police custody, Minnesota has become ground zero for addressing systemic racism and law enforcement accountability. As a result, institutions around the country are looking to us for best practices on how to move forward in such racially charged, troubled times.

Today, St. Paul is less than a decade away from becoming a majority-minority city. Henry is tone deaf if he genuinely believes his senior leadership team reflects the city that he has sworn to serve and protect.

The SPPD is currently authorized for 619 sworn officers, but has only 576 cops on the job, which means there is a recruitment and retention problem. Why would young people of color want to work for the SPPD or serve as an ambassador for the organization when they do not see themselves reflected in its current leadership, which is usually a good indicator of the glass ceiling they will encounter?

In addition, countless business studies show that when there is a lack of racial diversity in an organization's decisionmaking process, addressing systemic racism, equity and inclusion are often an afterthought until there is a threat to the agency's funding, profitability or reputation.

I can assure you that if there were a questionable officer-involved shooting in St. Paul's Summit-University area, Henry would not have a difficult time identifying a qualified African American cop to accompany him on the perfunctory Black church tour or to meetings with local civil rights leaders to explain damning body camera video.

The old and tired playbook Henry is using to justify the SPPD's homogenous senior leadership team is not fair to long-time officers of color or the community-at-large. It is also a recipe for disaster for inclusive, community-based policing, which Henry claims to have built his almost 25-year law enforcement career on in our great city.

Lee Hayes, a St. Paul-based public relations/public affairs consultant, can be reached at leehayes@leehayespr.com.