Minneapolis police chief resigns after scandal over sexual misconduct investigation
A report found that Brian O’Hara probably interfered with investigation in what mayor called a ‘breach of trust’
The Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, resigned on Tuesday after a report found that he probably interfered with an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.
O’Hara stepped down after a meeting with the Minnesota city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, who earlier this month nominated him to serve a second term after his appointment in 2022 to steady a police department still in turmoil after the murder of George Floyd two years earlier.
Frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times.
Frey announced O’Hara’s resignation at a Tuesday evening press conference, at which he said he had lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead.
“Trust is not secondary to the job, it is the job,” Frey said. “When trust is broken it becomes extremely difficult to continue leading effectively.”
The investigation into O’Hara’s conduct found no evidence to confirm allegations he had improper sexual relationships with city employees, the Times said, but concluded he had likely deleted a contact from his phone last year while facing a previous internal investigation, amounting to interference.
“Your behavior, as substantiated by the investigation, demonstrates poor judgment, is inconsistent with the level of integrity this role requires, and has made it extraordinarily difficult for you to continue effectively in your role,” Frey’s letter to O’Hara stated.
O’Hara has not yet commented publicly about his resignation.
The mayor said assistant police chief Katie Blackwell would take over acting leadership of the department until a permanent replacement could be found. Blackwell is expected to be among the candidates.
O’Hara was appointed in November 2022 with a mandate to reform the Minneapolis police department, which had just seen four of its officers sentenced for their involvement in Floyd’s 2020 murder. They included Derek Chauvin, who received a 22.5-year prison term for the killing, and a subsequent, concurrent 21-year term for violating Floyd’s civil rights that saw the former officer moved to federal prison.
A two-year justice department investigation concluded in 2023 that the department engaged in a pattern of excessive force and years of unlawful discrimination against Black Americans.
Frey, at the Tuesday press conference, credited O’Hara with rebuilding public trust in the department, but said that trust needed to extend to the person leading it.
“Everyone makes mistakes, including me, but what I can’t allow is a breach of trust,” Frey said. His comments were a reversal from his position earlier this month when Frey said O’Hara was “the right leader for this moment and for this city”.
Announcing his support for the chief to serve another term, he added: “Minneapolis didn’t ask for small steps, we demanded real, measurable change. And under his leadership, that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing.”
O’Hara is credited with reversing a stem of resignations from the police department, and heading off a call from some Black lawmakers for it to be disbanded, a proposal rejected by voters in 2021.
More recently, he has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge into Minneapolis, which saw the deaths of two unarmed US citizen protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in January by federal officers.
He condemned the shootings in a 25 January appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, during which he said Minneapolis residents had “had enough” of the violence.
“This is the third shooting now in less than three weeks,” he said. “The Minneapolis police department went the entire year last year, recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn’t shoot anyone.
“And now this is the second American citizen that’s been killed, it’s the third shooting within three weeks.”
The June 2025 murders of Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband; and a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic school in south Minneapolis two months later, also came during O’Hara’s tenure.
“We saw Chief Brian O’Hara encountering some of the most difficult moments that our city has ever faced, and he did so with poise,” Frey said on 7 May at the nomination event, noting that the number of Minneapolis police department officers had climbed from 550 to more than 640, applications were up by 200%, and that crime had fallen across the city.
What stands out is the mayor said assistant police chief Katie Blackwell would take over acting leadership of the department until a permanent replacement could be found. That is the part worth paying attention to.
Reading that the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, resigned on Tuesday after a report found that he probably interfered with an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct — hard to argue with the logic there.
So the bottom line is frey announced O’Hara’s resignation at a Tuesday evening press conference, at which he said he had lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead. Wonder how this will land.
In other words frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times. Curious to see how this develops.
Basically frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times. What matters is whether anything changes because of it.
The fact that frey announced O’Hara’s resignation at a Tuesday evening press conference, at which he said he had lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead really puts things into perspective.
George Floyd has been vocal about this, good to see them staying on it.
The bigger issue here is frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times. That changes the calculation.
Reading that the mayor said assistant police chief Katie Blackwell would take over acting leadership of the department until a permanent replacement could be found — hard to argue with the logic there.
In other words frey announced O’Hara’s resignation at a Tuesday evening press conference, at which he said he had lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead. Curious to see how this develops.
Think about it: frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times. That speaks volumes.
So the bottom line is frey issued O’Hara with a “serious misconduct” reprimand after receiving the report on Tuesday, and warned he faced discipline up to and including dismissal, according to the New York Times. Wonder how this will land.
If the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, resigned on Tuesday after a report found that he probably interfered with an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct, then the bigger picture starts to look very different.
What stands out is “Trust is not secondary to the job, it is the job,” Frey said. That is the part worth paying attention to.
The bigger issue here is the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, resigned on Tuesday after a report found that he probably interfered with an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct. That changes the calculation.