Fifth Precinct inspector visits Ward 13 coffee hour 

Council Member Linea Palmisano hosted Minneapolis Police Department Fifth Precinct Inspector Ryan Kelly at her public office hours for Ward 13 residents on July 10. Kelly was promoted from his lieutenant position in June and now leads the precinct which covers Southwest Minneapolis. 

The small group of residents asked Kelly about communication issues with the Fifth Precinct and recent car break-ins but he also shared information on policing in Southwest Minneapolis. 

Kelly has recently been a public figure for the Fifth Precinct, visiting neighborhood organization meetings and openly giving out his business card. But residents still express frustrations with contacting the precinct. 

“I would love to work toward how MPD can be a little bit more communicative with community members,” Lynnhurst resident Patrick McDougle said. 

McDougle said he did not receive a response from police after filing a police report and leaving a voicemail with the Fifth Precinct, leaving him feeling "disconnected from (his) ability to communicate with MPD.” 

Kelly responded by announcing the Fifth Precinct has hired, and thus filled, its second crime prevention specialist position, who handles a lot of communication with residents. 

“We need to have two for this community because it's such a large community that one person, there's no way that can work,” Kelly said. 

In the last two years, civilian staff have taken on multiple roles, which normally isn’t the case, according to Kelly. 

Resident questions at the coffee hour were more concerned with bigger issues around police trust, but a brief mention of car break-ins led Kelly to share more about what the police know. 

Youth who break into and vandalize vehicles has been an issue in Ward 13, and Kelly believes the Metro area-wide problem is due to a TikTok trend. 

It “keeps coming back, and we were hoping it was going to be over with by now,” Kelly said. Police have identified the youth involved. “We've arrested them. We arrest them a lot because we know who they are.” 

Kelly said he wished there were better options to deal with juvenile crime. 

“The approach that we use currently with the county is not working,” Kelly said. “We used to have our juvenile detention center that would take a lot of these juveniles but it's such a finite amount of crimes that they'll actually allow us to book them in through the night.” 

Kelly said the youth who are arrested will laugh because they know they will be quickly released. 

“That’s what we deal with as cops all the time,” Kelly said. “The kids that are unparented, and we basically are the parents. And they're laughing at us because they know what's going to happen.”

The community’s lack of trust in the police after Operation Metro Surge was addressed by Fulton resident Ray Klahr. 

“I think a lot of folks are still really hurting from that,” Klahr said. 

Kelly responded with a story about visiting a Tangletown coffee shop and engaging with the Hispanic workers for 45 minutes.

“You still feel a little bit of that apprehension, which is very disheartening for me because obviously we had nothing to do with any of that stuff,” Kelly said. "The only thing I can say is we need to continue to integrate and go to these community events and just show people. We're the police for Minneapolis. We're your police officers. We're not federal immigration officials.” 

Palminsano asked residents attending the Friday morning office hours for feedback on what they want to see in the next police chief. 

“I want somebody who will hold officers accountable,” Linden Hills resident Carol Cafferty said. “We're still in the process of trying to change the culture and rebuild the trust with community.” 

Other residents asked for the next chief to uphold people’s First Amendment rights in light of Operation Metro Surge. 

Kelly said he preferred an internal candidate. 

“They need to be able to empower the right people to make the right decisions,” Kelly said. “We came to a point in the last administration where every decision was made by one person.”

Palmisano said there would be many opportunities for community input on the next police chief, including informal feedback which will be tracked by her office.