Chief Harteau: Mpls. feeling the 'Ferguson Effect'

Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau says she thinks there may be some of what law enforcement officials call the 'Ferguson Effect' in her city.

Some in the law enforcement community say they believe police across the country may be acting more cautiously and enforcing the law less stringently in the wake of questions raised by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri last year.

Harteau spoke to MPR News host Tom Weber, in the wake of the protests over the fatal police shooting of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis last month.

"I have no doubt that officers at times question things, and are a little bit more hesitant, certainly on some lower level, and some stops that maybe that they would normally do, but they question, what is this going to mean? And I don't want that to happen," she said. "I don't know to what level, but I would assume that given everything that's occurred that there has to be some fear factor."

Harteau also said that her officers, and particularly officers of color, were unfairly subject to verbal abuse and violence in the wake of the Clark shooting last month.