MPD chief grilled over passivity during ICE Metro Surge

At a Monday meeting of the Minneapolis Community Commission on Police Oversight, Police Chief Brian O’Hara faced pointed criticism from roughly three dozen residents and activists who say MPD failed to protect people during DHS’s Operation Metro Surge and in the federal killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Speakers from groups including the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice and Communities United Against Police Brutality accused officers of hanging back while heavily armed federal teams swept neighborhoods, with one resident saying, "We showed up. Where were you guys?" O’Hara defended his department by arguing that federal agents operate under different laws and that MPD has limited authority to interfere with what Washington labels lawful immigration enforcement, conceding the department “wasn’t perfect” and was in a “constant state of trying to adjust.” He also disclosed that MPD has opened two potential misdemeanor assault cases involving federal agents and referred them to an Inspector General’s Office, but said the department has received no response so far. The clash underscores a widening accountability gap: metro residents can grill their own chief in public, but any effort to hold federal officers to even misdemeanor standards is now stuck in a federal bureaucracy that doesn’t feel obliged to answer to Minneapolis.