“Gun violence will not be tolerated”—that’s what Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara proclaimed nearly two months ago, during a July 3 press conference.
With every one of the 60 shootings that have occurred since, his words have increasingly become the stuff of mockery and hypocrisy. Unfortunately, however, there is a much greater concern.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) public crime dashboard, these 60 shootings are just a fraction of the 979 “shots fired calls” that occurred since the day after Chief O’Hara offered his proclamation.
His claim likely holds no meaning to the 89 victims who suffered gunshot wounds on his watch during the same timeframe, from July 4 to Sept. 4.
As if the circumstances weren’t bad enough, and without mention of any other violent crimes, such as the violent carjacking that took place yesterday, I doubt that anybody who lives or works in Minneapolis will find comfort in O’Hara’s latest admission.
Chief O’Hara’s latest remarks
On Newsmax TV’s “National Report,” Chief O’Hara recently admitted that the Minneapolis Police Department “cannot get through a regular day, dealing with all of the challenges that we have, without all of our law enforcement and community partners.”
Considering that O’Hara called leaders of federal agencies “tone deaf” after a search warrant was executed in Minneapolis back in June, he now seems to be offering some kind of olive-branch appreciation.
JUST IN: Assistant MPD Police Chief Katie Blackwell, who also posed in front of HSI’s federal helicopter, sent this email to officers today:
Reminder of Police Authority on Immigration Matters
All,
This is a reminder that all MPD personnel are prohibited from involvement in… https://t.co/SHw69mYrcv
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) June 6, 2025
Whatever his intention, O’Hara’s admission reveals an increasingly tragic contrast between the actual crime in Minneapolis—and the alleged grasp of the circumstances that he, Mayor Frey, and the city council claim to have.
Yet again, in his own words, Chief O’Hara indicated another grim detail…
The number of patrol officers is down to 260
During the interview on Newsmax TV, O’Hara also said, “We’ve lost — this is a 900-person police department, typically, prior to 2020, and we’ve lost well over 500 officers since then. So, we have been in the process of rebuilding.”
However, according to MPD staffing records, there are only about 260 patrol officers within the Minneapolis Police Department at the moment.
That number—260 patrol officers—tells only part of the story.
These 260 patrol officers are somehow assigned to each of the five MPD precincts. If we consider an equal distribution for the sake of argument, that suggests there would be 53 patrol officers per precinct, perhaps more or less, as the actual case may be.
If so, these 53 patrol officers would be assigned to one of three patrol shifts, or about 17 patrol officers on a given shift at each precinct—again, give or take the actual distribution, rosters, and assignments.
But a patrol officer does not work every day of the week, you’d likely find about half of these 17 patrol officers on shift on any given day, again, generally speaking, without factoring (mandatory) overtime.
So while Mayor Frey and the Minnesota mainstream media may be heckling that “crime is down,” Chief O’Hara himself admitted an indisputable fact: the number of patrol officers on the Minneapolis police department is down—and data indicates is fallen to just 260.
‘Dozens’ of recruits, but only about a dozen Field Training Officers (FTOs)
Granted, Chief O’Hara also claimed that, “We do have hope on the horizon. We do have dozens and dozens of young people that are in various stages of their training, earning college degrees, and on their way to the academy that are in programs to become police officers.”
O’Hara’s vague, yet politically smooth remark about “various stages of their training” ignores the many bottlenecks involved in transforming recruits into patrol officers.
For one thing, Chief O’Hara did not mention that the MPD has only 14 Field Training Officers (FTOs), according to staff data.
So, whether the MPD has 100 or a 1,000 recruits, there are only 14 FTOs to train them.
Given that field training takes weeks, if not months in most cases, the “horizon” O’Hara mentioned might as well be in some other distant galaxy.
‘The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder’
Meanwhile, the public must suffer and reckon the gap in reality between what Chief O’Hara has been saying with what he’s actually been doing about crime in Minneapolis.
One of the key principles of modern policing, dating back to 1829, states that “the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.”
With that in mind, the idea that “crime is down” seems like a fabrication—and data indicating rampant violent crime—and only 260 MPD patrol officers—seems to be a matter of fact.
For the sake of any remaining “hope” left in Minneapolis, hopefully Chief O’Hara, Mayor Frey, and the city council will stop talking and start doing something to evidence “an absence of crime and disorder” in Minneapolis.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Dr. JC Chaix
Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis" and "Minnesota v We the People."
