New recruits for Minneapolis Police Department include first Somali-American woman, first non-U.S. citizen
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Lesly Vera wanted to be a police officer for as long as she could remember. The 27-year-old was born in Mexico, came to the United States at age 4 and grew up in Minneapolis.
She followed the path that many young people take into the profession, working as a civilian community service officer while earning a law enforcement degree. But a big obstacle stood in her way.
While Vera is a legal, permanent U.S. resident, she’s not a citizen. But thanks to a recent change in state law, Vera was finally able to walk across the stage Thursday evening at the Minneapolis Police Department’s latest recruit graduation ceremony.
Vera is the first green card holder to be sworn in as an MPD officer, but she wasn’t the only trailblazer in the group of 23 new officers sworn in at the ceremony.
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Standing alongside her was Officer Ikran Mohamed, 23, the first Somali-American woman to join the department.
Mohamed came to the United States from Kenya at age 10, spent her teenage years in Faribault and worked as a correctional officer in Owatonna before applying to MPD.
After the ceremony, Mohamed said the 16-week academy training course was tough, but she encourages other young women to give it a go.
“It’s very challenging. That’s why I’m here. And I want to be that somebody, to be a role model for girls who look like me, so they can say ‘I can do it too,’” she said.
Vera noted that she not only had to go through the grueling physical training, she also had to make sure all of her immigration paperwork was in order.
“I’m not going to say it wasn’t challenging, because it was. I was basically the guinea pig. Nobody knew where to start. I did everything that everybody else did, provided the documentation and everything that I needed to provide. And I also put in the work,” she said.
Even though the state law allowing green card holders to serve as police officers is new, Chief Brian O’Hara noted that Vera’s service is part of a long American tradition.
“There is a history in this country of people, immediately upon arrival to the country, enlisting in the military and serving,” he said. “And certainly somebody like Lesly, who has been here essentially her entire life, absolutely is entitled to protect her community in the same way as anyone else here has, and we’re honored to have her. And my opinion: she should be at the top of the list when it comes to citizenship.”
Vera, Mohamed and the other new officers will hit the streets Friday to begin 10 weeks of field training.
In the four years since George Floyd’s murder, hundreds of officers have left the department and it has struggled to recruit new ones. But city leaders reported last month that the trend has finally started to reverse.
A new police contract that council members approved in July boosts officer salaries by nearly 22 percent over three years, which means that this new recruit class can expect to earn $85,000 by their third year.
O’Hara said with these new officers, MPD now has 582 sworn personnel and is on track to finish 2024 with a larger force than it had last year. The chief said that he expects future classes of recruits to add to those numbers.