Minneapolis has turned to a veteran insider to steady its police department after a sudden leadership shake-up. Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell is now serving as acting chief following Brian O’Hara’s resignation, a move announced by Mayor Jacob Frey on May 27.
Blackwell steps in after abrupt resignation
Blackwell’s appointment came immediately after O’Hara left office in a dramatic fallout tied to an investigation into his conduct. According to reporting by The Associated Press, Frey said O’Hara resigned rather than face discipline that could have included termination after investigators found he interfered with an inquiry into allegations about his relationships with city employees. Those allegations themselves were not substantiated, but the mayor said investigators concluded O’Hara had tried to obstruct the process.
The mayor said Blackwell would take over leadership of the Minneapolis Police Department while the city begins searching for a new chief. Frey described her as prepared for the role and moved to install her without delay, underscoring the city’s need for continuity at the top of a department facing both operational strain and long-running reform obligations. Local outlets, including MPR News and CBS Minnesota, reported that her appointment was effective immediately.
That urgency reflects the position Minneapolis finds itself in. O’Hara had been brought in from Newark, New Jersey, in late 2022 to help guide the department through a period of rebuilding after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the political, legal and social upheaval that followed. His departure now places a new burden on Blackwell, who inherits not only day-to-day command responsibilities but also the symbolic task of reassuring residents, rank-and-file officers and city leaders that reform efforts will continue.
The change also arrives amid a broader instability in Minneapolis public safety leadership. MPR reported that the future of other key positions in the city’s public safety structure is also uncertain, adding to the sense that Blackwell is stepping into a role that is both temporary and unusually consequential. For the city, the question is no longer simply who will hold the title, but whether the department can maintain momentum during another moment of upheaval.
A longtime Minneapolis officer thrust into a bigger role
Blackwell is not new to Minneapolis policing. She is a longtime department veteran whose career has largely unfolded inside MPD, giving her deep institutional knowledge at a time when City Hall appears to want stability and familiarity. Recent profiles from MPR News, CBS Minnesota and the Star Tribune describe her as a senior operations leader who has spent decades in the department and who became widely known to the public during the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin.
For many Americans, Blackwell first became recognizable in 2021 when she testified for the prosecution at Chauvin’s murder trial. In that testimony, she said the restraint used on George Floyd violated department training and policy, a moment that was closely watched nationally because it came from a high-ranking Minneapolis police official. The testimony put her in the unusual position of serving as both a department leader and a public face of accountability during one of the most consequential police trials in modern U.S. history.
Since then, Blackwell has continued to hold senior command roles inside MPD. A City of Minneapolis restructuring announcement in 2023 identified her as assistant chief, and more recent local reporting has described her as assistant chief of operations. The Star Tribune also reported that she served for 28 years in the Minnesota National Guard as a senior military police sergeant, retiring from that service in December 2025. That military background may add to the city’s confidence in her ability to manage a complex command structure during a period of instability.
Her selection is notable for another reason: unlike O’Hara, who was recruited from outside Minneapolis, Blackwell represents continuity from within. That cuts both ways politically. Supporters may see her as someone who knows the department’s personnel, history and current reform workload in practical detail. Critics may question whether a department under sustained external oversight needs deeper internal change rather than another leader shaped by the same institution. Even so, in the immediate term, City Hall’s choice suggests that experience and operational familiarity outweighed the desire for another outsider.
Why O’Hara’s exit matters beyond a personnel change
O’Hara’s resignation is more than a routine turnover in police leadership. It lands at a time when Minneapolis remains one of the country’s most closely watched police departments, still navigating the aftermath of Floyd’s murder and the legal findings that followed. The U.S. Department of Justice announced in June 2023 that it had found patterns of unconstitutional and unlawful policing by the city and MPD, including excessive force and discriminatory practices. Separately, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights had already secured a court-enforceable settlement requiring major changes.
Those mandates are not abstract. The state agreement, reached on March 31, 2023, and approved by a judge on July 13, 2023, requires the city and department to make sweeping reforms aimed at addressing race-based policing and changing organizational culture. The agreement affects training, supervision, stops, searches, use-of-force practices and accountability systems. A federal consent decree has also been pursued following the Justice Department’s findings, adding another layer of oversight and pressure on department leadership.
That context helps explain why the loss of a chief is especially disruptive. Reform processes of this scale depend heavily on command-level consistency, not just because chiefs set priorities, but because they act as the public and institutional point person for compliance. O’Hara had been hired in part because of his prior experience in Newark, another city that worked under federal oversight. Minneapolis leaders had hoped that background would help him manage reform while rebuilding trust and staffing.
Instead, his resignation threatens to complicate that work. The AP reported that Frey said the circumstances of O’Hara’s departure should not erase the work done under his tenure, but the episode inevitably raises fresh questions about accountability inside the department’s top ranks. For Blackwell, the challenge is immediate: she must keep reform implementation moving even as the department absorbs the reputational damage and internal disruption caused by the chief’s exit. In Minneapolis, leadership credibility is not a side issue. It is central to whether reform can be sustained.
The pressure facing Blackwell inside and outside the department
As acting chief, Blackwell will face dual pressures that often pull in opposite directions. Internally, she must maintain order, morale and operational performance in a department that has struggled for years with staffing shortages, heavy public scrutiny and ongoing controversy. Externally, she must satisfy residents, elected officials, reform advocates and court monitors who expect visible progress and strict adherence to change mandates.
That balancing act is especially difficult in Minneapolis because policing there has become inseparable from larger debates about race, accountability and public safety. O’Hara was brought in to help calm those tensions while leading reform from the top. His resignation, coming under findings that he interfered with an investigation, risks reinforcing public skepticism about whether senior leaders truly embrace transparency and accountability. Blackwell therefore steps into office with little honeymoon period and no room for symbolic missteps.
She has already signaled that she intends to provide steadiness. Local reporting on her first public comments after taking over said Blackwell emphasized moving the department forward and said she did not hesitate when asked to step into the role. That message is likely aimed at both employees and the broader public: a reassurance that department operations will continue and that leadership transition will not halt reform work or public safety responses.
Yet the city’s next steps will matter. A prolonged interim period could create uncertainty about authority and direction, especially in a department where officers and commanders are already adjusting to extensive policy and training changes. At the same time, moving too quickly to install a permanent chief could trigger criticism if the search appears rushed or politically insulated. Blackwell’s acting tenure may therefore become a test case for whether Minneapolis can manage a police transition more deliberately than it has managed past crises.
Her standing inside the department may prove to be an asset. A leader known to officers and staff can often make immediate operational decisions more smoothly than an outsider. But familiarity alone will not answer the larger public question: whether MPD can produce credible, measurable reform while preserving basic stability. That is now the standard Blackwell will be judged against.
What comes next for Minneapolis policing
The immediate future is likely to center on two tracks: maintaining department operations under Blackwell and beginning the political process of selecting a permanent chief. Frey has not merely lost a department head; he has lost a figure he had chosen to lead a difficult reform era. The mayor now must show that the city can replace O’Hara without deepening distrust among residents who already view the department and City Hall with skepticism.
Blackwell’s tenure as acting chief could shape that search in important ways. If she is seen as a steady hand who can keep reforms on course, public pressure may build either to consider her for the permanent role or to choose someone with a similar command of local conditions. If the interim period instead exposes renewed dysfunction, city leaders may again look outside Minneapolis for a chief with a national reform résumé. Either way, the appointment puts Blackwell at the center of one of the city’s most sensitive decisions.
The stakes go well beyond City Hall. Minneapolis remains under extraordinary scrutiny from state and federal authorities, advocacy groups and residents still shaped by the trauma of 2020 and the years that followed. Every major leadership decision at MPD is now interpreted through the lens of reform credibility. That means Blackwell’s actions in the coming weeks — on discipline, transparency, community engagement and officer supervision — may carry outsized significance.
For now, the city has opted for continuity in a moment of disruption. On May 27, with O’Hara out and uncertainty spreading, Minneapolis chose a veteran department leader to take command immediately. Whether Blackwell’s role lasts weeks or longer, her appointment marks the start of another pivotal chapter for a police department still trying to redefine itself under the glare of national attention.
