Last year, when city officials were looking for an experienced leader to take the reins of the understaffed and embattled police force, they zeroed in on Brian O’Hara, who was then a deputy mayor in Newark, N.J. The job was a minefield, but Mr. O’Hara said he was instantly interested.
“Everyone thought I was nuts,” he said.
Mr. O’Hara had played a leading role overseeing a period of transformation that followed a
2014 Justice Department report that found that officers in Newark routinely violated people’s civil rights. In a deeply polarized city, he saw an opportunity to rebuild trust by healing wounds that had been festering for generations.
“People think you either unleash the cops and deal with crime or you respect human rights,” Mr. O’Hara said. “I know from what I lived through in Newark that you can do both at the same time.”
But few doubt the difficulty of that balancing act and the depth of the chasm that remains between minority communities and the police.
Sheriff Dawanna S. Witt of Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, is the most senior Black law enforcement official in the city. But when she’s on the road in an unmarked car, the sight of a patrol car behind her fills her with fear, she said. She may be the sheriff, but in those moments she feels the city’s troubled past viscerally.
“If a squad car gets behind me, to this day, I get nervous,” she said.