Overview
- The Firearm Assault Shoot Team, or FAST, launched in March and is staffed with 15 detectives, including seven from partner agencies such as the ATF, Minnesota BCA, Metro Transit police, Bloomington police and the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
- FAST investigators go to shooting scenes immediately to interview witnesses, canvass for video and handle nonfatal shootings like homicides so cases do not wait for homicide detectives to take them.
- Police credit the unit with several arrests and charges so far, including an arrest tied to a late‑May double shooting on Nicollet Mall, but the department has not released a full count of FAST cases or arrests.
- The city budgeted $2 million for the unit and FAST holds bi‑weekly interagency meetings to share leads across Hennepin County as about half of victims and suspects live outside Minneapolis.
- MPD aims to raise the nonfatal shooting solve rate from about 47% in 2025 to over 60% in 2026, but independent data on FAST’s overall caseload and its longer‑term effect on violent crime remain unresolved.