Minneapolis appoints new public safety commissioner
Updated: 1:00 p.m.
The Minneapolis City Council Thursday voted 12-1 to appoint Hennepin County Chief Judge Toddrick Barnette to lead the city’s public safety efforts.
Barnette will be Minneapolis’ second-ever commissioner of the Office of Community Safety, overseeing the city's police, fire, 911, emergency response and neighborhood safety efforts. He comes into the office vowing that he’s committed to leading a comprehensive approach to public safety that fosters trust between city residents, police and elected officials.
"I’m deeply committed to the safety of Minneapolis, the wellbeing of its residents,” Barnette said at a public hearing Tuesday. “I believe by fostering collaboration, trust and innovation, we can create a city where everyone feels safe, valued and empowered.”
Barnette will take over the position at a time when the city is already under a state court-enforced agreement governing policing in the city. Minneapolis also faces a likely federal consent decree after a Department of Justice investigation released this summer found that officers routinely used excessive force and disproportionately stopped, arrested and used force against Black and Native residents.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said “the trust and integrity that Chief Judge Barnette has shown over the years is what we need in Minneapolis.”
“Trust is a commodity that we can’t have enough of right now,” Frey said. “In order to truly achieve safety in this city, it’s going to be a collaborative effort, not just with those five departments, but also with the people of Minneapolis.”
Barnette is a native of Washington, D.C., and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1992. He served as an attorney in the Hennepin County Public Defender’s office for 11 years before moving to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for two years. He was appointed to Hennepin County District Court in 2006 and elected as chief judge twice. As chief judge, Barnette oversaw arrangements for the trials of four former police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing.
In an interview with MPR News earlier this month, Barnette said changing public safety in the city would require collaborations both inside and outside of city government.
“Community safety is not just these five departments, we’re going to have to work with public health, we're going to have to work with the county, we’re going to have to work with the state,” Barnette said. “So all those things are important to bring a holistic approach [and] requires all of us to work together.”
Frey admits that serving as commissioner isn’t an easy job, but said Barnette’s experience in the criminal justice system makes him “the right leader for this particular moment.”
“This is an individual who has been able to oversee the whole system and now is coming to Minneapolis to serve,” Frey said. This is “someone that has such deep trust in community, who has built out relationships over several decades in our city, and someone who has the kind of managerial expertise to take our safety system to the next level.”
The council’s Committee of the Whole moved forward Barnette’s nomination earlier this week with just one dissenter, Council Member Robin Wonsley, who said at the public hearing that she was disappointed he couldn’t articulate concrete steps he'd take as commissioner beyond ensuring that Minneapolis meets the terms required by state and likely federal consent decrees. Wonsley ultimately was the only vote against Barnette’s confirmation.
Barnette succeeds the city’s first community safety commissioner Cedric Alexander, who announced his resignation less than a year after his appointment. Alexander took credit for declines in some crime rates, but attracted scrutiny for some statements he made online and clashed with some council members.
Frey said he believes that Alexander was the “right person at the right time” to lead the new Office of Community Safety and that Barnette “meets not just the criteria but the value system moving forward.”
Interim Deputy Chief Operations Office Lee Sheehy has been overseeing the community safety office on an interim basis since Alexander’s exit. Barnette said he’ll resign as chief judge and be sworn in at City Hall on Monday morning.