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Jeffrey Anderson is the former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice. Jeff commented on Minneapolis murder statistics in “MPD consent decree: Note 1.”

Reader Dave Begley forwarded Jeff’s commentary to reporter Deena Winter, who covered the press conference for the Star Tribune. Like the other reporters called on by Department of Justice press officer Julia Hartnett at the press conference, Winter supports the consent decree. The reporters’ support was reflected in the premise of virtually virtually every question that the consent decree is a good thing (and needs to be protected from the incoming Trump administration). The repetition was mind-numbing. Today’s Star Tribune editorial by Denise Johnson reflects the same premise. There is no argument to be had.

I wanted to ask a critical question or two of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Police Department Chief Brian O’Hara, but Hartnett would not call on me. I set forth my unasked questions in “Is it something I didn’t say?” I was the only reporter at the press conference whom Hartnett had not called on when she declared that time was up. Hartnett has failed to respond to my repeated requests for an explanation.

Dave Begley thought that Star Tribune readers might benefit from exposure to Jeff Anderson’s analysis. Having reviewed it, Winter disagreed:

Hey Dave, I think I sat beside Scott during the DOJ announcement of the consent decree! I don’t think this is an accurate representation of what happened, however. Murders went up all over the U.S., not just here, for what most now believe was societal breakdown during the pandemic. Now, those numbers are going back down here, as in many cities, small and large. Also, Minneapolis never decided “policing was optional” – in fact, the city residents voted AGAINST remaking the police department, re-elected a mayor who was against police defunding, and certainly never defunded MPD, in fact, funding has only increased every year since 2020, except in 2021. It is now at record levels.

Jeff Anderson responds to Winter’s message below. I will have more to say about it in Note 4 of this series. Jeff comments:

* * * * *

Winter writes, “Murders went up all over the U.S., not just here [in Minneapolis], for what most now believe was societal breakdown during the pandemic.” Well, the “societal breakdown” — whatever its source — appears to have been a lot more substantial in Minneapolis. The FBI has put out at least three different figures for the number of murders in 2021, but even using the highest one (which is probably the most accurate), the murder rate rose 35 percent nationally from 2018 to 2021 (from 5.1 to 6.9 homicides per 100,000 U.S. residents). (See the link to “source data” here.)

That’s an appalling increase that’s mostly attributable to leftist calls to “defund the police” and all that went with that. But it’s not even close to the increase in Minneapolis, where the murder rate rose a whopping 207 percent over that same span — from 7.2 to 22.1 — almost 6 times the national increase.

Winter also writes that Minneapolis’s murder numbers are now “going back down.” In truth, however, Minneapolis had more murders in 2024 than in 2023, and its murder rate in 2024 remains about 150 percent higher than in 2018 (about 18 percent versus 7.2 percent). Far from mirroring the nation as a whole, Minneapolis is an outlier and a cautionary tale.