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Crime, Law and Justice
Cari Spencer

Minneapolis Police Department applications continue to signal rebound

new park officer graduates
Minneapolis Park Police Officer Briana Brown shakes hands with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara at a recruit class graduation ceremony for new officers on Sept. 26 at the American Indian Center in Minneapolis.
Matt Sepic | MPR News

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The Minneapolis Police Department says the force continues to show signs of growth, including a more diverse range of applicants, after years of decline. 

Applications are up 45 percent this year compared to all of 2023, said MPD chief of staff Andy Skoogman at a city council committee meeting Wednesday. He said the department has received 1,014 applications so far this year, up from 697 last year. 

The department’s numbers took a significant dive after the police killing of George Floyd and the unrest that followed. Dozens of officers filed workers’ compensation claims, and the force plummeted as officers retired and quit. 

In 2019, there were more than 800 officers on staff, dozens more than the 800 required by the city’s charter. In March, when the department had 563 officers — and one of the lowest ratios of officers to citizens among major U.S. cities — the city launched a $1 million campaign to recruit police and dispatchers. 

The latest group of 23 recruits, who joined last month, includes both the first Somali-American woman to join the department, as well as the first legal, permanent non-citizen to join.

Skoogman said that’s part of an increasing number of diverse applicants hoping to join the department. As more people have applied, Hispanic/Latino and Asian/Pacific Islander applicants have seen a more than 90 percent increase compared to last year, he reported. 

The Office of Community Safety also reported continued efforts to center residents’ voices in the city’s approach to public safety.

Amanda Harrington, the director of community safety design and implementation with OCS, said plans to form a community safety working group are underway. That group would meet monthly to help the city work toward its safety goals — and bring information back to their own communities.

“In the spirit of doing something different, we’re creating a work group that is outside the political process,” Harrington said, adding that members would be paid to include more people in the process. “This community safety work is unprecedented, and we have to take unprecedented action to do something different.”

Luana Nelson-Brown, director of the Neighborhood Safety Department, also said there are efforts to scale up the behavioral crisis response team, including determining how the unit could respond to additional crime types.