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In a March 7 commentary ("Minneapolis police chief talks reform, but does he mean it?"), Nekima Levy Armstrong, Kim Milliard and Pete Gamades charge that Chief Brian O'Hara wants "to water down or slow the required reforms" of the Minneapolis Police Department. While we know and respect Armstrong, we respectfully disagree with her and her colleagues' criticism of the police chief.

Our city's history of repeated racist police abuse and repeated failed reform efforts fully justifies the deep mistrust of MPD reflected in the authors' commentary. However, while this history demands that we stay vigilant to ensure that the court-ordered police reforms are enacted, this history does not justify cynicism about Chief O'Hara's commitment to reform. He is not a product of this history.

O'Hara came to our city highly praised for leading consent decree compliance in Newark, N.J., including this comment given to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder in 2022 by a Newark community leader: "O'Hara understands community-based public safety," said Aqeela Sherrills, president and board chair of the Newark Community Street Team. "Cats like O'Hara [are] the future of policing in this country."

O'Hara has already pushed through policy changes that emphasize respect for dignity and impose new limitations on use of force (including prohibiting painful restraints in addition to chokeholds) and has substantially reorganized the MPD to prepare for and prioritize reform efforts, including compliance with the Minneapolis Department of Human Rights settlement agreement and forthcoming federal Department of Justice consent decree. He deserves our encouragement as he continues down the path of both transforming MPD and addressing crime.

To respond to specific complaints in the March 5 commentary, we disagree that the MPD's hiring of officers Tyler Timberlake and Lucas Weatherspoon show any lack of commitment to reform by O'Hara. A brief recap for those who missed this: On his second day in office, O'Hara was asked to join Timberlake's final interview, but the MPD's already-completed vetting process had missed the infamous video from Timberlake's prior employment, which surfaced a few months after he was hired. O'Hara then took immediate action to investigate and ultimately terminate Timberlake, as well as to revamp the vetting process for hiring officers. With respect to the Weatherspoon hire from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, there had been no complaints against Weatherspoon in his previous job. After his hiring, the video was released showing Weatherspoon's behavior in the tragic death of Lucas Bellamy. What happens next is uncertain because Minnesota's employment laws preclude public comment by the MPD about this incident.

The authors charge O'Hara with ignoring the risks of vehicle pursuits because of a policy change, but fail to note that the new policy only adds the immediate threat of gun violence to the existing justifications for vehicle pursuit, and the policy also requires officers to "weigh constantly" the risks of continuing pursuit.

The authors' next concern is too much overtime, which is clearly a problem, but this an unfortunate reflection of the MPD's severe understaffing rather than any diminished commitment to reform.

Finally, the authors claim that "Chief O'Hara and his bargaining committee" have failed to propose changes to the Police Federation contract that have been "demanded by the community." While these contract negotiations are handled by the city's director of labor relations, not O'Hara or any of his subordinates, the city has in fact put several game-changing proposals on the table, including eliminating the "past practices" clause and limiting the scope of arbitration. This contract is still under negotiation.

In short, we believe in O'Hara's commitment to police reform and we, as community members, believe in supporting the chief while continuing to exercise vigilance over the reform process.

Catherine Shreves and John Satorius are co-chairs of the Plymouth Church Re-imagining Community Safety Group.