The Minneapolis Police Chief who was hired to oversee reforms in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing has resigned amid a probe into alleged sexual misconduct.
Father-of-two Brian O'Hara, 46, was accused this year of engaging in intimate relationships with his employees, despite being married to a former co-worker. While the allegations have not been publicly detailed and remain unproven, O'Hara stepped down after investigators found he had interfered with the probe.
He is accused of deleting a contact card from his city-issued cell phone in an attempt to shield evidence and telling another city employee about the investigation after he was instructed to keep it quiet, according to a written reprimand.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told O'Hara he would be disciplined, which could include his termination. He chose to resign instead, Frey said.
'It was an extremely painful decision, obviously, but I concluded that that was necessary to maintain public trust, and this was the right way to move forward as a city,' Frey said. 'Trust is not secondary to the job. It is the job,' he added.
The city still has 17 open complaints against O'Hara - separate from the investigation that resulted in disciplinary action - and will continue investigating, mayor's office spokesperson Jennifer Lor said. Lor said she could not comment on the nature of those complaints.
The former Minneapolis chief is married to Wafiyyah O'Hara, a Lieutenant in the Newark Police Department, where he used to work as deputy chief, and he has two sons - Brendan and James. The couple appeared happily married - O'Hara shared a photograph of himself and Wafiyyah beaming during a vacation in New York City in the summer of 2025. Writing on his LinkedIn page, O'Hara said the trip was for his wife's birthday. 'Happy Birthday, Wafiyyah!!!' the chief wrote. 'Grateful for you every day'. In the same post he admitted he had earlier forgotten it was her birthday.
O'Hara became the top cop in Minneapolis in 2022 while the department was at the center of a nationwide reckoning over racism and brutality in policing. Two years prior, Floyd, a black man, was killed by a white officer in the Minnesota city, igniting global Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund the police.
Last year, Minneapolis entered an agreement with the federal government to overhaul its police training and use-of-force policies in the wake Floyd's murder. The US Department of Justice under President Donald Trump canceled the agreement months later.
O'Hara also oversaw the law enforcement response to the deadly Annunciation Catholic School shooting last August. He criticized immigration enforcement tactics in December after a federal agent kneeled on a woman's back during an arrest and then tried to drag her to a car.
Minneapolis police faced scrutiny from all sides during Trump's immigration crackdown by people who thought the officers were helping or hindering federal agents and protests. O'Hara also flanked Frey during a memorable press conference when the mayor called for ICE agents to leave his city in the wake of two fatal shootings by officers.
ICE agent Jonathan Ross gunned down poet Renee Nicole Good, 37, on January 7 in Minneapolis while she was inside her car. Seventeen days later, federal officers shot dead nurse Alex Pretti, 37, during the same targeted immigration enforcement operation. DHS officials said Pretti approached officers with a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun, though witness videos from the scene appeared to show Pretti holding his phone up - not a firearm. Footage suggested that an officer took Pretti's weapon from his waistband and walked away with it moments before he was killed.
'We're in a position right now where we have residents that are asking the very limited number of police officers that we have to fight ICE agents on the street,' Frey said at the time. 'We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another.'
Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell has stepped in to lead the department during the search for a new chief.
