Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara apologized at a news conference Thursday after previously discussing crimes committed by “groups of East African children.”
O'Hara made the announcement during a Nov. 11 interview.
A petition on Change.org demanding an apology for O'Hara's comments, which was update Local radio station WCCO's investigation into the Oct. 31 homicide only collected 629 signatures. Before O'Hara spoke, two Somali leaders who did not speak English made remarks. (RELATED: 'Terrible Night': Scott Jennings warns Democrats' election rout has come at a cost to the party's 'image' in the long run)
“The Somali community here in Minneapolis has accepted me and shown me love, and I appreciate that,” O'Hara said. “We've been working together over the last three years to try to solve some really big problems that we're facing in our community.”
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“Sometimes we have to be honest about the problems that we face in our community, and we need our community to help us solve these problems together because it's real and it's serious,” O'Hara later added. “At the same time, if people took something I said out of context and caused harm, I apologize and regret it because that is not my intention at all.”
O'Hara told WCCO that part of the problem was gangs, as well as the fact that many of those committing crimes, from vandalism to car theft, were from out of town. Prosecutorial and judicial leniency in Minneapolis has also made it more difficult to fight crime. according to in Alpha News.
“It's not the poor kids from Minneapolis that are our residents, it's the kids driving their mom's Mercedes-Benz into Dinkytown and they don't know where they are,” O'Hara told WCCO.
O'Hara said the man killed in the Oct. 31 shooting and one of the wounded were not Minneapolis residents.
“Groups of children, groups of East African children who come from neighboring communities, not from one community, are all over the place,” O'Hara said in a Nov. 11 interview.
Democratic City Councilman Jamal Osman of Minneapolis was car stolen on November 10, days after winning re-election on a platform that included “restorative justice” and “violence prevention programs.”
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