Police Chief Brian O'Hara under scrutiny over comments on Minneapolis to New York Post

Yahoo

19-05-2025

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara is under scrutiny over comments he gave to a national newspaper about the city ahead of the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
The article, which featured in the conservative tabloid New York Post, proclaims Minneapolis as "still broken, divided and suffering" five years on from Floyd's killing by MPD officer Derek Chauvin, and sees O'Hara criticize the "detached, bourgeois liberal mentality" he believes is prevalent in the city.
The Post states O'Hara was accustomed to a "very Democratic city" after his previous role in Newark, but "nothing prepared him for the ultra-liberal orthodoxy he encountered in Minneapolis."
'Here it's very, very ideological and a lot of times it's like reality and facts can't get through the filter. It's a very detached, bourgeois liberal mentality … It's bizarre," O'Hara is quoted as saying.
The comment was met with criticism from some leaders in Minneapolis, including City Council President Elliott Payne, who told the Star Tribune: "No matter how people develop their core values, one should have a deeper understanding of the diverse perspectives of our community before engaging in conversations with New York tabloids."
Ward 9 council member Jason Chavez – whose ward includes the location where Floyd was killed – also criticized O'Hara in the Star Tribune, calling his comments "counterproductive and condescending."
When asked to clarify Chief O'Hara's comments in more detail, Minneapolis Police Department spokesman Sgt. Garrett Parten issued the following statement on Sunday:
'As the chief has said previously, policing in the city has become overly politicized, making it difficult to even discuss the need for effective and adequately resourced police without it being viewed through a rigid ideological lens. That's the disconnect — not with residents — but with political narratives that overshadow the real and urgent safety concerns residents are living with every day."
Bring Me The News asked a series follow-up questions to MPD in response to the above statement. We sought further clarity on the "political narratives" to which O'Hara is referring, and also asking what specific talking points does O'Hara wish were not viewed through a "rigid ideological lens."
We also asked whether O'Hara, who earns $280,000 annually and is the third highest-paid City of Minneapolis employee, considers Mayor Jacob Frey among those with a "bourgeois liberal mentality."
It's possible that the mentality that O'Hara cites could refer to the more progressive Democrats voters have elected to serve on Minneapolis City Council and in the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, though this wasn't made clear in his comments to the Post or in the statement from the press office that followed.
O'Hara has on several occasions been at odds with progressive councilors and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty – whose office has at times focused on intervention and rehabilitation over incarceration, particularly concerning younger offenders. But O'Hara has worked closely with Frey, a centrist Democrat, since joining the department in November 2022.
Frey's office gained additional powers when voters approved a "strong mayor" mode of governance in 2021, shifting administrative power away from the council.
While the city council is the legislative body and has discretionary powers over the city budget, it is Frey who now has power over the administration and oversight of all city departments, veto power over council legislation, and is in control over the city's police department (which he also had prior to the strong mayor model was implemented).
Frey has pushed – mostly successfully – for major funding boosts to Minneapolis Police Department, to the point that the city's police officers are now among the highest paid in the nation. This follows a major exodus of police officers taking early retirement and filing disability claims amid the backlash towards city police in the wake of Floyd's murder and the 2020 riots.
While O'Hara continues to butt heads with the "liberal orthodoxy" referred to in the New York Post piece, supporters of MPD have consistently scored victories in the political battle sparked by Floyd's murder.
In the years that have followed, greater powers have been conferred to the mayor's office, police funding has been significantly boosted, and the effort to replace MPD with a new Department of Public Safety failed in a public vote.
The policing budget in Minneapolis has risen to just under $230 million in 2025, compared to $180 million in 2022.
The New York Post article also quotes Royce White, who is running as a Republican for Tina Smith's soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat, who claims the majority of protesters who took part in the riots and civil unrest that followed Floyd's murder were flown in or bused in from outside the Twin Cities.