State of Emergency: Are Minnesota agencies better prepared for civil unrest?
Is Minnesota ready to respond when an emergency strikes? That's a question WCCO is investigating all week long. The WCCO Investigates team is digging in and getting answers from top officials tapped with keeping us safe from all kinds of threats. We start with civil unrest, as Senior Investigative Reporter Jennifer Mayerle uncovers what's changed since May 2020.
MINNEAPOLIS — The images are seared into collective memory, some of the darkest hours in Minneapolis history. Protests erupted into riots, looting and arson following the police murder of George Floyd. The Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd precinct was given up in the mayhem, and the city woefully unprepared to respond to the enormity of the events.
"What's so problematic around 2020 is there wasn't one incident. It wasn't one location. Was hundreds of different locations across the city," Mayor Jacob Frey said.
An after-action report found Minneapolis mishandled the response, didn't follow emergency procedures, lacked leadership, structure, coordination, and communication. It offered 27 recommendations Frey says they're nearly done implementing.
"I'll tell you, in terms of dealing with crisis, in terms of dealing with emergency, and in terms of the work that we've done over these last several years to be prepared, there is no city, there is no administration that is going to be more prepared than we are," Frey said.
He says that preparedness started with the creation of the Office of Community Safety, now led by Commissioner Todd Barnette. One office to provide a unified command overseeing police, fire, 911, emergency management and neighborhood safety.
"Make sure we have coordination, make sure communication is clear, make sure we're prepared, make sure that you're training people, that they are prepared," Barnette said.
Barnette says the city now follows NIMS, the National Incident Management System, also used by partners like Hennepin County and the state.
"So, it gives us that structure of here's our roles and responsibility. So, we know that we have an incident command system, and we know we have an incident commander on the ground. If there's a need to bring in any services from the county we're working on that same structure, same thing with the state.," he said.
Frey says responders have trained for emergency scenarios, including civil unrest.
"So much of it is making sure that the internal communication pathways are in place to make sure that the external execution is improved, to make sure that the directives that are given and or information that is received is going to the right people at the right time," Frey said. "You can be 100% prepared and have done everything correctly and still be overwhelmed at the same time,."
The police department has lost hundreds of officers since 2020, more than a third of the force. If unrest were to happen tomorrow, Minneapolis would likely need help from local partners.
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson says the department is using what it learned to better assist communities.
"We don't wait for things to become worse and more difficult. We're reaching out on the front end to make sure that there are more resources that may be needed or technical advice or expertise that may be needed, that we're ready to be there to do that. I'm talking with Adjutant General from Minnesota National Guard right away, before anything even comes close to that being a potential for activation," Jacobson said.
Jacobson stepped into the role last year. He says they're also working on stopping a situation before it starts or escalates.
"What we're trying to do is get ahead of that, to build those relationships, to talk to the important community members who have influence within our communities, talk to them before the bad things happen. And those relationships are open. They're ongoing," Jacobson said.
Gov. Tim Walz declined WCCO's request for an interview.
Next month, a team of roughly 60 people from the city of Minneapolis will go to Maryland for a FEMA exercise. They say it will cap off the emergency preparedness work that's being done.
