Minneapolis police officers gather outside an event on September 22 in Minneapolis. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

When Brian O’Hara took over the Minneapolis Police Department in 2022, he saw a department in free fall.

The murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots in 2020 had fractured the public’s trust in law enforcement. Crime and shootings were rising at startling levels. The police force was demoralized and dropped from over 900 sworn officers to a low of 550 last year, stretched dangerously thin in a city of over 400,000 people.

“It was, essentially, kind of a hopeless situation,” O’Hara told CNN.

“When I got here, the Minneapolis Police Department was functioning more like a Fire Department,” he said. “The officers were traumatized. They were sitting in the station, only g

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