Interim Chief Bill Peterson was nominated to continue his role as the top cop of the Minneapolis Police Department, Mayor Jacob Frey announced Friday, Oct. 9.
Peterson has been with the department for more than 30 years, serving in leadership positions across several divisions, including the Special Operations Division Patrol Unit, the Violent Crimes Investigation Division and the Fourth Precinct Patrol.
He also oversaw Pre-Services Training at the department, which included managing both the police academy and Field Training Officer (FTO) program, and developed the first Crisis Intervention Training program used across the department.
Peterson most recently led the department’s response to a mass shooting last month at the Loring Towers downtown, where three people including the shooter were killed and three Minneapolis police officers were wounded. Before becoming the interim chief, Peterson was the inspector of the First Precinct, which serves downtown Minneapolis.
“When I was first asked to serve as interim chief, I was reluctant,” Peterson said. “I had no intention of becoming the permanent police chief either, but when the department needed someone to step forward, I answered that call.”
The search for a new candidate and Peterson’s eventual nomination come months after former Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara resigned in May, just weeks after being nominated by Frey to serve a second term. The former chief resigned after allegedly interfering with an internal investigation into his own conduct, prompting a reprimand from Frey.
O’Hara’s nomination was already receiving pushback before his resignation, as council members and community members pointed to the department’s overspending and officers’ response during Operation Metro Surge, which residents said failed to protect people from abusive conduct by federal immigration agents.
Frey’s choice came after the city paid an outside firm to conduct a nationwide search, which led to 20 applicants. That was whittled down to four finalists, and all four of whom were internal candidates — a preference expressed by a strong majority of residents who participated in five listening sessions conducted by the city, the mayor said.
“Not having somebody guess at what has taken place over the last six years here, but somebody who’s lived it directly who understands both the progress that the Minneapolis Police Department has made and also has a deep understanding that we have a long way to go,” Frey told reporters. “To truly understand the difficult issues that we have faced, a lot of times, you’ve had to live it personally, and that’s what we heard from a lot of constituents.”
Michelle Gross, President of Communities United Against Police Brutality, called the process “rushed” and “largely secretive,” and that the five listening sessions weren’t enough. Gross said the mayor squandered the funds used by the city on the search committee by pushing forward a “poorly qualified internal candidate” instead of a change agent from outside of the department.
“The most important job of any leader is to shape the culture of the organization they lead. This is especially true for the Minneapolis Police Department, which is under a legally binding consent decree after a long history of racially biased policing,” Gross said. “Bill Peterson is steeped in the same old culture that led to the murder of George Floyd. His history of complaints and misconduct make it clear that he is not the leader we need.”
‘Meet communities where they’re at’
In an interview with Sahan Journal, Peterson said staffing challenges remain the largest problem he faces. Calls for service haven’t dropped in the years since the murder of George Floyd led to an exodus of officers from the department. Balancing that demand while contending with personnel shortages will continue to be a main concern going forward, he said.
“Residents call hundreds of thousands of times throughout the course of a year and when you have fewer personnel, you have to figure out how to meet those demands without diminishing our level of public service as much as we possibly can,” Peterson said.
The interim chief cited public trust as one of four main focuses for him should he be confirmed as chief. Asked how he will try to build back trust in the police department, he said he plans to “meet communities where they’re at.”
Peterson told Sahan Journal that Operation Metro Surge was a “difficult” time in his more than 30-year career with the department, calling it a “very, very delicate situation that we were stuck in the middle of, and we were trying to do the best job that we could to keep the peace.”
Though he acknowledged criticisms from community members that the department did not do enough to protect residents from federal immigration agents, he also cited an example where the department tried to help safeguard communities.
The incident involved a march through the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood organized by rightwing agitator Jake Lang, who is known for peddling antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
Residents of the predominantly East African neighborhood held a meeting at the Bryan Coyle Center and asked Peterson, then the inspector of the First Precinct, to attend.
“It was a packed house. There were a lot of members of the community there,” Peterson said. “What I did was I showed up, I listened to what their concerns were, and then from there, worked with community members to help address those concerns.”
What followed was coordination between the community and the department, Peterson said. Somali community members asked for a robust police presence, so there were marked squad cars and police officers in uniform stationed around the neighborhood. He offered to place mobile cameras around the neighborhood, but when community members declined that offer, officers did not deploy the cameras.
On the day of the march, Peterson said he spent a few hours driving around the neighborhood himself, and he gave his personal cell phone number to a community leader to check in with him throughout the day. The march did not end up making it into the neighborhood, but he said he received positive feedback from how involved his precinct was in preparing for it.
Peterson said he plans to continue engaging communities by ramping up how much time officers spend outside of their squad cars and on foot, talking to residents about their public safety needs and how the department can fulfill them.
“Having conversations with people, listening to people and figuring out what they need for public safety — those types of relationships are what are going to continue to earn trust from community,” he said.
Frey said an official confirmation vote on Peterson’s nomination has not yet been scheduled but he’s expecting it to take place some time in November.
