Frey nominates Bill Peterson as MPD chief, drawing opposition

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey nominated interim Police Chief Bill Peterson on Oct. 9 to lead the Minneapolis Police Department permanently, setting up a City Council confirmation fight over who should run a department still under pressure to reform.

Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Minneapolis advocacy group, immediately called on the council to reject the choice. The group’s president, Michelle Gross, said Peterson is “steeped in the same old culture that led to the murder of George Floyd.”

“The most important job of any leader is to shape the culture of the organization they lead,” Gross said in a statement. “His history of complaints and misconduct make it clear that he is not the leader we need.”

Frey said in a written response to MSR that Peterson stood out throughout the search.

“One person kept standing out, and it became increasingly clear to me that Interim Chief Peterson was the right leader for this moment,” Frey said. “He had already been doing the work. He has already earned the trust of the community. There is hard work ahead, but he has my utmost confidence.”

Peterson, a 30-year department veteran, has led MPD since early June, when Frey named him interim chief a week after former Chief Brian O’Hara resigned. O’Hara left after investigators found he interfered with an inquiry into allegations about his conduct with city employees. Peterson joined the department in 1995 and had run the First Precinct since 2019.

When he took the interim job, Peterson said he did not want the permanent role. He later changed his mind and applied in September. He was one of four finalists forwarded by a national search firm, and all four were internal candidates: Peterson, Assistant Chief Mark Klukow and Deputy Chiefs Charlie Adams and Jon Kingsbury.

Frey’s office said about 20 people applied, many of them from outside the department. It said many external applicants dropped out of the process, and that community members and elected officials sat on the interview panels. Frey said residents told the city through listening sessions and elsewhere that they wanted someone who knows the department.

“Overwhelmingly, people have said that they want someone who knows the department, knows intimately what’s happened the last few years,” Frey said.

The nomination goes to the City Council. Frey’s office said the council will set a date for a public hearing this week and that the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension background check on Peterson is still pending. Peterson stays in his interim role until the council votes. Council Member Michael Rainville has said he supports Peterson, but the mayor’s nominees have not always had an easy path through the council.

The group’s objections

Gross’ group raised several concerns about Peterson’s record and the search.

The group said Peterson has a long list of complaints and that the city has refused to release some in response to a data request more than a year old. According to the city’s officer complaint dashboard, Peterson has been the subject of at least eight complaints between 1999 and 2021, the Star Tribune reported. Two more filed since 2023 remain open with the Office of Community Safety. The Star Tribune’s report did not say how those complaints were resolved.

Frey’s office said Peterson has a good record and has built trust over 30 years with the department. As with any officer complaint, it said, a complaint does not automatically imply wrongdoing. It said MPD would provide more information about the complaints, which MSR had not received as of publication.

The group also said Peterson was one of the Minneapolis officers who illegally used the state driver’s license database to look up former police officer Anne Marie Rasmusson, who sued in 2012. Court records show an officer named Billy Peterson was among the Minneapolis officers named as defendants in Rasmusson’s federal lawsuit, which alleged hundreds of improper lookups by officers across the state. Minneapolis agreed to pay $392,000 to settle claims against the city, and Rasmusson’s settlements with all defendants totaled more than $1 million. The group’s statement said Rasmusson “won a $1 million lawsuit” against Minneapolis, which overstates the city’s share. Frey’s office said MPD is looking into the question, and it did not say whether the officer named in the lawsuit is the nominee or whether any finding was made about his conduct. Settlements in such cases typically do not include findings against individual officers.

The group said Peterson was part of the Metro Gang Strike Force, which was disbanded in 2009 after allegations of corruption, theft and civil rights violations. Frey’s office said Peterson was not on that task force.

Gross said the city is in a budget crisis driven in part by police overspending, and that the money spent on a search firm was wasted because Frey did not say from the start that the department needed an outside “change agent.” Frey’s office said the city conducted a thorough search for an important role. It did not disclose what the search firm was paid.

What supporters say

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis has praised Peterson’s elevation, calling his appointment as interim chief a “positive shift in leadership.”

Rainville cited Peterson’s budget presentation as a reason for his support. Peterson acknowledged to the council last month that he inherited a “financial mess” and pledged to keep the department within a proposed $250 million budget, a $20.3 million increase over last year. He blamed chronic understaffing for heavy overtime use and turnover.

The city also held a series of community listening sessions hosted by council members from late August to mid-September as part of the search.

What comes next

The next chief will inherit a department implementing a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, according to the city’s job posting, while the city’s finances remain strained. Residents who want to weigh in can expect a public hearing before the council votes.

Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.