Minneapolis’ new community safety commissioner brings decades-long experience to the role

Public safety leadership, take two

Minneapolis welcomed a new community safety commissioner as Hennepin County Chief Judge Todd Barnette was sworn in Monday morning, October 23, just days after the City Council voted to confirm him 12-1. 

Barnette was nominated by Mayor Jacob Frey last month following the departure of Dr. Cedric Alexander, who held the position for nearly a year. Alexander previously worked as the director of public safety for Dekalb County in Georgia and led various law enforcement organizations for several years. 

He announced his departure shortly after the Department of Justice released its report that found patterns of abuse in the Minneapolis Police Department, but he stated in an interview that the report would help guide change in the city.  

The Office of Community Safety is made up of five separate departments that cover Fire, 911, the Minneapolis Police Department, Neighborhood Safety, and Emergency Management. The role of commissioner is a four-year term and earns a base salary of $300,000. 

Barnette is no stranger to administering a large governmental organization. He managed the Hennepin County court system as chief judge, the first person of color to hold the position when he took helm in 2020. 

Barnette oversaw the state’s largest trial court with 63 judges and 584 staff, which processes roughly 40 percent of cases filed in Minnesota. He took the position of Hennepin County chief judge shortly after the police-involved killing of George Floyd, where he coordinated the trials of Derek Chauvin and the other officers charged in Floyd’s murder. 

Holistic approach to public safety

In the years following George Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis officials and residents have grappled with their vision for public safety. Barnette now transitions into a role that calls for someone with a perspective that can factor in the different aspects of the criminal justice system and divert resources to the appropriate circumstances. 

With over three decades of professional experience in the criminal justice system, Barnette served as a public defender, prosecutor and judge in Hennepin County. He credits this experience in shaping his approach to public safety and said it would inform his work in this role. 

“I think that’s helpful. My view is not particular to any one of these departments, but it’s more like a high-level view of what’s going on,” he said referring to his previous roles. 

Barnette said he was motivated to apply for the role after seeing the city taking a “holistic approach” toward public safety, where neighborhood safety is at the beginning of the road and police are at the end. He stated that crime prevention should be built to the point that people won’t have to contact police and will be able to differentiate when to dial 311, as opposed to 911. 

In this public safety model, Barnette envisions an individual receiving the appropriate services they need from one of the five departments and reducing the chance of being a repeat offender. It also helps residents get the resources they need for a sustainable solution. 

“This approach of having a holistic view means that you could somehow be arrested for shoplifting, and we realize that your need is mental health. We’re going to get you mental health services, which will help you somehow not fall back into feeling like you have to shoplift,” he said. 

“It’s this idea of getting to the root cause of a lot of the things that we see in society, like homelessness, like substance abuse.”

In Barnette’s view, another benefit to this model is the ability to reduce redundancy in services from within the city departments and across other local or state agencies that do similar work. He described it as a continuum of services to avoid duplicating services so that resources can be dispatched without delay. Taking this approach in dispersing resources appropriately and effectively would maximize resources and give the acting department a prompt response time. 

Community engagement

Since being nominated by Frey, Barnette has attended community engagement meetings across the city to meet with residents, something he participated in previously as a judge. Prior experience with the public defender’s office taught him the importance of getting community buy-in before making impactful decisions. 

“If we’re trying to implement something, it’s important to get that buy-in,” he said. “It’s so important to get as much information to make the most informed decision that you can. You gotta let people voice their differences, as well as support what you might think is the best solution.”

Barnette stated that he’s been overwhelmed with support from community members during the community engagement meetings who have shared their hopes for his success. One takeaway he hopes to implement, after hearing from residents, is to create a central information hub to address concerns about transparency and accountability. 

The recent consent decree from the DOJ calls on Minneapolis to make changes and engage its residents in policing matters to improve the systematic issues found in the report. Though there has been much conversation on what change will look like, Barnette hopes to get to the point where community members will be able to see it for themselves. 

“It was interesting watching those leaders communicating with community members and trying to explain process and trying to explain this is what this means. That’s so important because people are so distrustful right now,” he said. 

“It has to be that way when people see it. It just can’t be words. We have to make sure that if we’re saying we’re going to be transparent, we have to be.”