Minneapolis police chief Brian O\u2019Hara, who took over the department in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s death, resigned Tuesday after an investigation found that he had interfered with a probe into his conduct. <\/p>\n
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Mayor Jacob Frey said he accepted O\u2019Hara\u2019s resignation. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not about being intolerant of mistakes \u2014 everyone makes mistakes, including me,\u201d Frey said at a Tuesday evening news conference. \u201cBut what I can\u2019t allow is a breach of trust. When you serve as chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, trust is not secondary to the job; it is the job. And when trust is broken, it becomes extremely difficult to continue leading effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The matter began last year when the mayor\u2019s office received an anonymous complaint alleging that O\u2019Hara had engaged in sexual relationships with city employees. An outside investigation concluded several months ago and found that the allegations were unsubstantiated. <\/p>\n
A subsequent inquiry, however, found that O\u2019Hara \u201cinterfered with the investigation process,\u201d Frey said. <\/p>\n
An investigative report obtained by NBC News shows that O\u2019Hara intentionally deleted a contact card from his city-issued cellphone \u201cin an effort to shield that evidence of connection between Chief O\u2019Hara and employee 2 from investigators.\u201d According to the report the contact card was present on his phone on May 1, 2025, but was removed by May 7. It was the only contact card deleted, and investigators found no technical explanation for its disappearance. O\u2019Hara denied deleting the contact in interviews conducted in June and April. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Hara was also found to have discussed the original investigation after being given explicit instructions not to do so, the report states. Investigators said O\u2019Hara told an employee that his phone had been taken as part of the probe. <\/p>\n
Frey said the interference does not alter the outcome of the initial investigation, but nonetheless constitutes \u201ca breach of trust.\u201d He said he had informed O\u2019Hara that disciplinary action \u2014 up to and including termination \u2014 was forthcoming, and that O\u2019Hara chose to resign instead.<\/p>\n
In a formal letter, the mayor said O\u2019Hara would be receiving a written reprimand for \u201cserious misconduct.\u201d <\/p>\n
The city has 17 other open complaints against O\u2019Hara, the mayor\u2019s office spokesperson Jennifer Lor said. Lor said those complaints remain active, but declined to provide further details. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Todd Barnette, with the Minneapolis Office of Community Safety, thanked O\u2019Hara for his service. <\/p>\n
\u201cChief O\u2019Hara helped advance police reform efforts, replenish sworn staffing and guide the department through some of the city\u2019s most challenging moments,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue moving forward \u2014 building trust in our police department through transparency, accountability, and collaboration with community members.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant police chief Katie Blackwell will serve as acting chief effective immediately, Frey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minneapolis police chief Brian O\u2019Hara, who took over the department in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s death, resigned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-668277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}