Mayor Jacob Frey announced Dr. Cedric Alexander would be the new Safety Commissioner in the city of Minneapolis early in July, and he was confirmed by the City Council in August.
Certainly Minneapolis has challenges, especially with increases in violent crime. Those challenges are exacerbated by a lack of police officers. Being able to keep up with that crime has been extremely difficult in Minneapolis, and all around the country in major metropolitan areas.
Now, just about a month into his job overseeing the public safety offices of the city, including the Minneapolis Police Department, Alexander spoke to WCCO’s Vineeta Sawkar on the Morning News at the State Fair, and reflected on what he’s learned on the job so far.
Vineeta Sawkar: Dr. Cedric Alexander, Community Safety Commissioner of Minneapolis, you were just telling me before we came on, obviously you have a lot of work to do with this position. What have you been doing so far? And I'm sure a lot of it has been meeting people, but give us kind of a lay of the land of what you've been doing up until this point?
Dr. Alexander: Today is actually the end of week four for me. So I’ve officially been here a month now. It's amazing how time goes by very quickly. But a lot of my time really has been spent being out in community, meeting people, meeting people in the business community downtown, listening to the concerns of people. And people have a lot of concerns, certainly around what's going on as it relates to crime in the community. I've been spending time inside public safety with the five platforms that I'm responsible for, which is police, fire, emergency management, office of violence prevention and 9-1-1. Those are very significant pieces of our whole public safety platform. And my goal here is to be able to bring all five of those platforms together and make sure they work together, sharing information, integrating with each other where we really become a forced multiplier as it relates to public safety.
So it's just not police by itself. It's also those other entities that play a huge role. It's really has been outlining to people in the community, and here again, people in the business community and inside the department as well, the importance of all of us working together at this very critical time in the history of this city. What I find most rewarding for me in the short period of time that I've been here is that everybody is energized. Everybody wants to be on board. Everybody wants to get into this, get into this fight because everybody recognizes, certainly people who've lived here, that this is a beautiful community. It's a wonderful community. And it has so much to offer, not just to Minnesotans, but to this entire country. And it has a fantastic history. So I'm really very privileged to even have an opportunity to be here with you all. But my role as your public safety commissioner, if you will, is one that is really tied to all of us being engaged with each other. And we are going to continue to do that. And that's what I'm trying to build here.
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Sawkar: Let's talk about that. You even just said, we are in this fight. What is this fight? And what are people in Minneapolis when you say engaging people in Minneapolis, what is a person in Minneapolis supposed to do to help?
Dr. Alexander: Well here's what we know realistically. We know we have a crime problem. We know that no matter where you may have to live in the city, I hear it virtually in every community I go to. I certainly hear it downtown. I hear it from the business community, the public, etc. We have a police department that is down 200-300 officers, which is hugely significant. But yet, still the men and women coming to work every day give it 150%. And we have to acknowledge that, applaud that. But you also have a community as well, who acknowledge the fact that they want to feel safer. They want to be safer. And what I've concluded is that in order for us to reach that goal, we all got to be in this fight together. We all have to say, we want to be safe together because police will do their part.
Every aspect of public safety that I'm responsible for will do its part, the community has a responsibility to be eyes and ears and hopefully to regain a trust of, and a feeling of legitimacy in their police. Where they feel they can trust them. And this is going to continue to take work and we are still working and building those relationships each and every day. And a lot of this is not seen, but it's being done. I can tell you, when I say that we got to stay in this fight together, there's another part of that. We also sometimes can be very self-defeating when we say to each other, say to other people, ‘oh, don't come into the city. It's bad. It's horrible, bada bing, bada bang.’ That's not a good message for us to give to ourselves and each other.
Sawkar: Can you give us two or three things once you leave here, that you tangibly think will be on your list to do as we move forward and as you move forward in this job?
Dr. Alexander: I got a list that's from here to the street corner in that regard. But I think the most important thing for me is to work with community and work with my public safety platforms in order to continue to build that trust in the community. And you know, there's a lot of mistrust. That's still out there amongst the large segment of people across this entire city. It's not relegated to any one community across this entire city. And I think over time we will continue to build that trust, but we got to work together. We got to be willing to give each other a chance in order to do that. You know, there's things certainly that has happened in the past that has been troublesome and hurtful and made people angry and understandably so. But we also have to look towards the future, and looking towards the future and making sure that the things in the past that have hurt us don't happen again. And it takes all of us to do that. And I'm telling you, my goal, my mission here is to be able to help continue to build those bridges with people. To do my part in sharing and help to build those bridges. But also, more importantly, to help build a community where people truly feel safe.
Sawkar: Is Minneapolis safe?
Dr. Alexander: Minneapolis is safe. And if you look at Minneapolis and many other cities across this country that are challenged coming out of COVID, coming out of economic crisis and all those challenges that they have with drugs and so forth, fentanyl being a big one across this country, we're challenged. But we're still safe. We're still a safe community. And I think we have to give ourselves an opportunity to step out, to come downtown, to go back into our communities because there's safety in numbers and we have to fight back. Sometimes fighting back is just showing up, in refusing to say, ‘I'm giving up.’ We’re just not going to give this up to the bad element. We're going to continue to fight. That's my commitment. That's what you hear in my voice. That's the passion you hear, right? And I'm going continue to do that. And I'm going continue to work. Hopefully everyone in this community gets on board and stays onboard because we're going to beat this. We're going to defeat this. And we're going to all continue to be proud of this great city. And it is a great city. Sometimes we can live in our own cities and take it for granted. Don't take your city for granted. This is an absolutely beautiful city with beautiful people in it. And people who want the very best for themselves, their communities, their families, their children, and I'm going to do everything that I can, as long as I'm here to help make that happen.
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