Brian O’Hara resigned as Minneapolis police chief on Tuesday night after Mayor Jacob Frey told him he would face discipline, including discharge, over findings from a second investigation into his conduct. Frey said Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell will serve as interim chief.
Frey confirmed the resignation Tuesday night and said the decision followed a report showing O’Hara deleted a contact from his city-issued cellphone to obscure his connection to a witness in an earlier probe. The mayor said he had notified O’Hara of the results of the second investigation on Tuesday and told him that he planned to take disciplinary action.
The resignation closes a fast-moving and politically awkward chapter for City Hall. Frey had re-nominated O’Hara earlier this month for another four-year term, only to reverse course after the additional findings came in. On Tuesday, the mayor said the interference in the process was a breach of trust and that, had he known earlier, he would not have nominated him.
O’Hara was informed of the original complaint on May 1, 2025, during a meeting with Frey and Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette. That complaint, received anonymously last year, alleged that the chief had engaged in sexual relationships with one or more city employees. An outside investigation cleared him of those allegations, which were not substantiated.
But the second investigation widened the trouble. It found that O’Hara discussed the ongoing investigations into his conduct with city employees even after being directed not to do so, and that he deleted a contact from his phone in a way investigators said was meant to obscure his link to a witness. Barnette told investigators that the only time O’Hara became agitated during the May 1 meeting was when he was told he needed to turn his phone over immediately for imaging.
Frey described the situation as extremely difficult, and the timing made it harder still. O’Hara had only just been re-nominated for a second term, a move that suggested the mayor had confidence in him before the new findings surfaced. Blackwell will now take over on an interim basis while the city decides what comes next.
O’Hara took over as police chief from Medaria Arradondo, with Amelia Huffman serving an interim stint before him. His tenure unfolded amid some of the city’s most turbulent public-safety years, including the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, a homicide peak in 2021 and more recent strains around violence and homelessness.
FOX 9 reported that Minneapolis recorded 64 homicides in 2025, down 33% from the recent pandemic high in 2021. O’Hara’s time in office also included Operation Metro Surge, the Annunciation school shooting and a rise in homeless encampments, all of which sharpened scrutiny of the department.
The immediate question is not whether the chief will return. It is how a mayor who renominated him earlier this month lost confidence so quickly once the second investigation was finished, and what that says about the standards governing one of the city’s most visible jobs.
