Minneapolis police department and Hennepin County debate approach to juvenile car thefts

CATHY WURZER: The Minneapolis Police Department and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office are trying to crack down on juvenile car thefts, but they seem to be disagreeing on how to go about it. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty presented the latest findings on youth auto thefts to a city council committee yesterday.

Moriarty says her office's youth auto theft diversion program is working, but it can only do so much. In order for juveniles to be required to utilize the resources the attorney's office provides, they need to be charged with the crime. However, there's a big gap between reported auto thefts and cases being charged.

MARY MORIARTY: Of those 7,856 cases, the MPD has brought us for potential charging 2.3% of those cases. That's very low.

CATHY WURZER: Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara was at the meeting yesterday, and this was his response afterward.

BRIAN O'HARA: Any implication that the Minneapolis cops are not doing everything they can to try and solve that problem, not partnering with people to try and address, is just not true, and it's a slap in the face to the cops that are out there every single day putting their lives on the line to try and resolve this problem as quickly as we can. I am all for diverting juveniles when appropriate, but that is not the problem that we're dealing with right now.

CATHY WURZER: Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara joins us right now. Welcome, Chief.

BRIAN O'HARA: Hi, Cathy. Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Thanks for taking the time. Say, let's begin by explaining the gap between reported auto thefts and the cases that you brought to the attorney's office for charging.

BRIAN O'HARA: Yeah. From what I've seen from yesterday's presentation, the county attorney was talking about the clearance rate of auto theft, cars that are reported stolen within the city of Minneapolis. That clearance rate has virtually nothing to do with the people who are actually arrested while driving or joyriding in stolen cars within the city.

The requirements for reporting clearance rates are your reporting whether or not you're making an arrest based on the initial offense. So unless we know that the particular person driving the stolen car two or three days later is the person who stole it, we do not clear out the original reported theft.

That has absolutely nothing to do with charging levels, the seriousness of the offense. It's just us accurately reporting clearance rates according to the rules that are established by the FBI.

That being said, auto theft has been a problem, and I think everybody knows it's kind of skyrocketed, particularly with juveniles for about a year and a half, exploiting the vulnerability of Kias and Hyundais. I've been speaking out about that, trying to raise awareness of that, and trying to raise awareness of just the seriousness of the problem.

It goes well beyond the crime of theft of the vehicle. I have been to countless scenes where I have had children shot and some dead while driving in these stolen cars, accidents where children have been driving these stolen cars joyriding, seriously injured, and in some cases, dying.

I mean, the latest iteration of that we've seen is this problem around robbery sprees with juveniles driving stolen cars. That's the latest--

CATHY WURZER: As you say, multiple incidents in just a few hours across the city recently. Have you seen these kids before?

BRIAN O'HARA: Some of them, yes. I mean, some of them, we've seen the same kids over and over and over. One of the kids we arrested this week had seven open warrants for his arrest. It speaks to kind of the level of the problem that we're dealing with.

I have said before, it's almost overwhelming the system. And it's not the volume of kids. It's not like we have this massive amount of kids now that are involved in this activity. I think it's just been an increase in the level of activity among some of these juveniles.

CATHY WURZER: Mary Moriarty does focus on diversion, but you have said many of these kids need to be charged. They need to be stopped, and you've seen that before. How do you reconcile that when the county attorney says there isn't enough evidence to charge these kids? There's a gap here, obviously.

BRIAN O'HARA: There's obviously a gap. I mean, it's a complicated problem. It is frustrating for law enforcement when we arrest a group of kids that are driving around in a stolen car that we know the car itself is connected to a series of crimes that just occurred.

The more serious these crimes become, it is that much more manpower intensive to try and build cases. If we catch a car of kids that's fleeing from doing a couple robberies an hour or two later, correct. The only probable cause we have at that time is fleeing law enforcement and being in the stolen car.

The way these crimes have happened-- they happen very quickly. We've had at times multiple stolen cars, a group of kids, as many as eight, ten kids get out with masks on, put a gun in a woman's mouth, and rob her of her cell phone. That whole thing is over in seconds, and it takes time to build that case.

These witnesses are not necessarily able to identify everybody involved, and it takes a whole lot of manpower hours, a whole lot of investigation to ultimately build enough evidence to charge for the robberies. That being said, it's still obviously illegal when these kids are fleeing the police and being in the stolen car itself.

CATHY WURZER: You sounded pretty upset yesterday after the presentation by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. Are there tensions rising between you and Moriarty? Can you maybe explain a little bit about some of the things that you're dealing with?

BRIAN O'HARA: Sure. I mean, I'll be completely frank. It is not easy for me to be a person being interviewed, and I am subject to interviews constantly in this position here. As you know, reporters will oftentimes ask me the same question over and over and over again if I don't give them an answer.

And I know reporters are oftentimes looking for controversy or that type of thing that will gain attention. And over the last several weeks, I have been visible in the community raising awareness of the challenge that we're facing around these robbery sprees and just making sure the public is aware that the police department is doing its job.

We've created a new strategy. We're redeploying resources. We have investigators working around the clock because I know the trauma that's being inflicted on these victims. I know how terrifying it is for people. And quite frankly, I've seen some of our police officers, grown men and women, crying after the fact when they've dealt with some of these cases when elderly folks have been attacked and beaten.

I mean, it has a disturbing effect on them. In a lot of interviews, I've said we need everyone involved in the system to do their part. That is true, and I do mean everyone. I mean parents. I mean community. I mean judges, everybody, to take this seriously as we are because I know our police officers are doing everything we can to try and solve it.

That being said, right before the city council meeting, I was giving an on camera interview to KARE 11 where I was getting these questions as I have been multiple times about the county attorney's office what's happening. And I named one of the assistant prosecutors that's embedded here, the great work that they're doing.

I explained how our investigators are literally talking to prosecutors in that office every single day trying to build these cases. So obviously, it was incredibly frustrating to hear parts of this presentation that claimed that the police department essentially isn't doing its part. The police department is not partnering. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth.

CATHY WURZER: Before you go, then, I want to ask this. Mary Moriarty mentioned she has spoken with you about restarting a diversion program that the police department used to have, and it's an option that she thinks was studied by the U of M. It was pretty successful, and she says you just need to do that. Do you know what she's talking about, and can that program get back up and running?

BRIAN O'HARA: I mean, there's a whole lot that we are doing that the county attorney is not aware of, and the police department is diverting juveniles. And we are all for that when appropriate. However, we are in the midst of a staffing crisis. We are trying to triage as best we can, and we are trying to address sort of the worst of the worst because it takes a lot of time and manpower to do that.

Yes, we are all for diversion. Of course. But we absolutely need to be doing everything that we can to try and address those who are causing the most harm in the community. And unfortunately, yes, I do think there's some philosophical difference about how to handle that, but I don't think that's something that needed to be sort of brought out in public.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I've run out of time. I know you don't have a lot of time today, either. Thank you so much.

BRIAN O'HARA: Thank you for having me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara.