MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Police plan to reassign officers from non-emergency calls toward specific robbery details if patterns of crime continue to emerge, according to a new protocol announced by Chief Brian O'Hara.
Moving forward, O'Hara said his officers will be required to call him directly if they notice a cluster of similar robberies or violent crimes in a geographical area. This week, the department has been investigating a spree of robberies involving groups of armed teenagers, with much of the activity happening in the Fifth Precinct of South Minneapolis.
According to MPD data, robberies have spiked by 42 percent citywide so far in 2024 compared to this same time period last year. In the Fifth Precinct, robberies have increased 149 percent.
"Any officers that are writing reports, conducting typing on investigations, on breaks, they will be pulled immediately and redeployed into the areas of concern," O'Hara said. "If something like this happens and I order the police to not respond to non-emergency calls, yes, there will be delays. But that's a decision I'm absolutely willing to make because I'm not willing to allow a robbery spree to continue unabated."
Last weekend alone, MPD reported 46 violent crimes across the city -- 70 percent consisting of robberies. On Saturday night into Sunday morning, between 8 p.m. and 1:30 a.m., O'Hara said his department responded to "at least a dozen robberies happening in a short period of time."
The Hennepin County Attorney's Office has already charged four teenagers in connection to the spree. However, O'Hara said there are other suspects involved, many of whom he said have been involved in previous violent crimes.
"We don't have enough to charge them or even to make arrests, but we know they are associates. These are young people that are well-known to us. Some had been involved in carjackings, in robberies, in gun crimes in the past and obviously they have not learned their lesson," O'Hara said. "We are providing negative reinforcement when we are engaging in catch and release, catch and release. We're almost encouraging them to do this."
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty was not available for an interview Thursday, but her office released a statement saying they are "deeply supportive of MPD's efforts to develop the evidence necessary" to charge these cases. Moriarty's office set up a program last summer to identify repeat offenders of carjackings and auto thefts and has noted that only a small percentage of crimes have been forwarded for prosecution.
"We are working with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office as best we can, to build the cases they are requiring in order to charge," O'Hara said.
O'Hara also indicated that MPD may ask for outside help to tackle these robberies. That could include reaching out to the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office or Metro Transit Police, he said.
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