Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne says Mayor Jacob Frey kept the council in the dark about formal investigations into Police Chief Brian O’Hara, a charge that has sharpened the political fallout from O’Hara’s abrupt resignation.
The dispute centers on what the mayor knew, when he knew it and why O’Hara was renominated for another term before the council learned the depth of the allegations and the subsequent investigative findings.
Council president accuses mayor of withholding key information
Payne went public on May 27, 2026, a day after Frey announced that O’Hara had resigned rather than face discipline that could have included termination. At a City Hall news conference, Payne said council members had not been told of formal investigations into O’Hara before Frey moved earlier in May to renominate him for another term as police chief. According to FOX 9, Payne said, “We knew of no actual formal investigations at that time, none of that was disclosed to us.” He added that council members only learned the scope of the probes when the mayor circulated the final report on the evening of May 26.
Payne framed the issue not as a dispute over unproven personal allegations, but as a breakdown in governance. He said the council’s concern was “the lack of transparency and disclosure of these investigations” before members were asked to weigh O’Hara’s continued leadership. The council president argued that accountability depends on trust between the mayor’s office, the public safety apparatus and the elected body that must confirm key appointments and oversee city operations.
The criticism was joined by Council Members Robin Wonsley and Jason Chavez, who said the resignation raised broader concerns about police oversight in Minneapolis. Wonsley questioned why O’Hara had remained on the job during the investigations and why Frey nominated him again while those inquiries were unresolved. The dispute immediately became more than a personnel matter, touching the city’s larger struggle over who controls public safety policy after years of tension between the mayor and a divided council.
The clash matters because Minneapolis’ police chief is not just a department manager but a central figure in a nationally watched reform effort. The city is still under intense scrutiny after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, and every leadership decision at the Police Department carries implications for public trust, compliance with reform mandates and the city’s political stability. Payne’s accusation that Frey never disclosed the probe adds a new layer of doubt over how openly City Hall handled a sensitive investigation involving the city’s top law enforcement official.
What investigators found in the O’Hara inquiry
The findings that led to O’Hara’s fall were laid out in an investigative report dated May 26, 2026, and in a written reprimand issued the same day by Frey’s office. The report, prepared by the law firm Forsgren Fisher, concluded there was sufficient evidence that O’Hara interfered with an earlier misconduct investigation by knowingly and intentionally deleting a city employee’s contact card from his city-issued phone and by discussing the inquiry with at least one city employee after being instructed to keep it confidential.
The report traces the matter back to May 1, 2025, when O’Hara was informed in a meeting with Frey and Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette that an anonymous complaint had triggered an investigation into allegations that he had engaged in sexually intimate relationships with city employees. Investigators said O’Hara was not told the names or number of the employees allegedly involved. His city-issued phone was imaged that day, then imaged again several days later. According to the report, one contact card appeared in the first phone image but not in the second, and that card was the only one of roughly 600 contacts to disappear.
Forsgren Fisher concluded that O’Hara knowingly deleted the contact in an effort to shield evidence of a connection to an employee from investigators. The report said there was no technical explanation for the disappearance and found O’Hara’s denials were not credible in light of the objective evidence. It also concluded that O’Hara discussed the investigation despite explicit instructions not to do so. At the same time, the investigators said there was not sufficient evidence to substantiate the underlying allegation that O’Hara had sexually intimate relationships with city employees. All allegedly involved parties, the report said, repeatedly denied such relationships.
Those dual findings are central to the political controversy. Frey and other city officials have stressed that the sexual misconduct allegations were not substantiated. But the report’s conclusion that O’Hara interfered with the investigative process transformed the case into one about integrity, evidence handling and the conduct of the city’s top police official. In his written reprimand, Frey said the substantiated conduct amounted to serious misconduct, and the mayor said publicly that O’Hara chose to resign after being told discipline was forthcoming.
Frey defends secrecy and says he acted on substantiated facts
Frey has defended his handling of the matter by arguing that ongoing personnel investigations had to remain tightly held to protect confidentiality and the integrity of the process. In a statement reported by FOX 9 on May 27, a spokesperson for the mayor said information about ongoing personnel inquiries is limited to a small need-to-know circle so that confidentiality is not breached, rumors do not spread and investigative work is not disrupted. The administration said the responsible course was to let the investigation conclude, review the findings and act once there was substantiated information.
The mayor also rejected the idea that anonymous allegations alone should have triggered punitive action against O’Hara. In a statement released after the council’s criticism, Frey said he does not make serious decisions based on rumors, anonymous complaints or optics. He said he acted promptly once he received a completed investigative report with substantiated findings. That defense is politically significant because it places Frey on the side of process and evidentiary caution, even as critics say he owed the council more candor before renominating O’Hara.
Frey’s predicament is complicated by the timeline. On May 7, 2026, he publicly renominated O’Hara for a second four-year term, praising him as the right leader for the city at that moment. Less than three weeks later, on May 26, O’Hara resigned under threat of discipline after the new report found he had interfered with the earlier probe. That sequence has allowed critics to ask whether the mayor knew enough during the renomination process to at least alert council leaders that serious matters were still being examined.
The mayor’s defense may resonate with those who believe employment investigations must remain confidential until completed. But it does not fully resolve the governance question raised by Payne and other council members: whether council leaders should have been told, in some form, that a formal investigation involving the chief was underway before they were effectively asked to consider his continued tenure. The answer could influence not just the political damage to Frey, but future expectations for how Minneapolis handles misconduct allegations involving top officials.
O’Hara’s resignation jolts a police department under reform pressure
O’Hara’s resignation lands at a delicate time for Minneapolis, where policing remains one of the city’s defining political issues. Hired in 2022 after a career in Newark, New Jersey, O’Hara was brought in with a mandate to help steer the department through post-George Floyd reforms. His tenure coincided with intense debate over staffing, budget overruns, public safety strategy and compliance with state and federal reform demands.
The Associated Press reported that Frey announced O’Hara’s departure on May 26, saying the chief chose to resign rather than face discipline that could include termination. AP also reported that the city’s investigators did not substantiate the alleged intimate relationships, but found O’Hara had interfered with the probe. The resignation leaves Minneapolis once again searching for a stable police leader while the department remains under close outside scrutiny.
The instability is not only administrative. The police chief’s office has become a symbol of larger unresolved disputes over reform pace, oversight and political accountability. Some council critics had already expressed skepticism about O’Hara’s leadership before the resignation, pointing to complaints about management style and departmental spending. His departure now intensifies concerns about whether the city has the leadership continuity needed to carry out reforms and rebuild public confidence.
It also raises questions about the role of other officials in the chain of oversight, including Barnette, the community safety commissioner. Payne has suggested the episode reflects broader failures of oversight, while other critics have argued the city’s handling of the matter shows how fragmented Minneapolis governance remains even after voters approved changes intended to clarify authority over public safety. In practical terms, the resignation means Frey must move quickly to stabilize command at a time when the city can least afford another rupture in police leadership.
Why the disclosure fight could shape Minneapolis politics next
The immediate issue is whether Frey should have told council leaders more, sooner. But the larger stakes are political and institutional. Minneapolis has spent years wrestling with how much power the mayor should wield over policing and how much visibility the council should have into decisions involving the department. The O’Hara episode has reopened that debate in raw terms, with the council president essentially arguing that the mayor’s office treated elected lawmakers as bystanders in a matter with major consequences for public trust.
That dispute could carry beyond this single resignation. If Payne’s criticism gains traction, it may strengthen calls for more formal disclosure rules when high-level appointees are under investigation, even if the underlying allegations remain confidential. It may also embolden council members who have long argued that Frey’s administration is too centralized and too defensive in dealing with police oversight matters. For Frey, the political risk is that a case he sees as proof of accountability could instead be remembered as proof that he controlled information too tightly.
The timing is especially sensitive because Frey has closely tied his political identity to policing. Over multiple terms, he has argued that Minneapolis needs both reform and a functioning police force, resisting calls to dismantle or defund the department while also backing external oversight. O’Hara was central to that balancing act. His resignation, and the suggestion that the mayor shielded the council from knowledge of the probe, threatens to undermine Frey’s claim that his administration can deliver both accountability and stable leadership.
For now, the facts most clearly established are these: a formal investigation into allegations against O’Hara began in 2025; a follow-up inquiry concluded he interfered with that investigation; the underlying sexual relationship allegations were not substantiated; Frey renominated O’Hara on May 7, 2026; O’Hara resigned on May 26; and on May 27, Payne said the council had never been told of formal investigations before then. Whether voters and city leaders view that sequence as responsible confidentiality or unacceptable secrecy may define the next phase of Minneapolis’ long-running struggle over police power, reform and trust in City Hall.
