Overview
- Mayor Jacob Frey announced Tuesday a six-phase, 16-week national search that begins with stakeholder outreach and ends with final interviews and a mayoral nomination to the City Council in October or November.
- Phase one will collect feedback from police employees, residents and council focus groups to build a job profile before the city hires a national executive search firm to run recruitment and screening.
- Interview panels are planned to include Office of Community Safety leaders, Minneapolis Police Department leadership, police labor representatives, and later city council members to vet candidates.
- Interim Chief Bill Peterson is serving temporarily and has said he will not seek the permanent job, and the search follows former Chief Brian O’Hara’s May resignation after investigators found he interfered with an earlier probe, deleted a contact from a work phone, and violated confidentiality requests.
- City officials stress the hire must balance steady operational leadership with continuing reform work tied to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights agreement, and council debate over internal versus external candidates will shape the selection process.