The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara: The Interview You Likely Missed

• Molly McPherson • Episode 348

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Most leaders hide behind surprise when disaster strikes. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara did the opposite.

In a January 2025 interview with The New York Times' Michael Barbaro, O'Hara said the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent was "predictable and entirely preventable"—and that he'd said so publicly the day before it happened. Days after I recorded this episode, federal agents killed Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, in another operation that has drawn national outcry.

This episode isn't about policing. It's about what leadership looks like when:

  • The crisis you predicted happens anyway
  • Your people are exhausted and under-resourced
  • You're caught between powerful institutions and community grief
  • One bad moment could erase years of progress

O'Hara doesn't perform. He doesn't spin. He names fear, admits fragility, and refuses to let federal agencies off the hook for dangerous tactics—even when it would be easier to stay quiet.

If you lead anything—a team, a company, a movement—this interview will show you what accountability sounds like when the performance stops and the real work begins.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW: The Daily, January 13, 2025: "Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara" with Michael Barbaro

KEY MOMENTS:

  • Why saying "this was predictable" is the hardest—and most important—leadership move
  • The F-bomb that built trust instead of breaking it
  • How O'Hara critiques ICE without collapsing into blame
  • What it means to hold both empathy and accountability at the same time
  • Why "turn the heat down" isn't neutrality—it's survival

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses police violence, federal enforcement operations, and community trauma.

Recorded January 2025. Updated following the killing of Alex Pretti on January 25, 2025.

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Molly McPherson:

Hey there. Before we get into today's episode, I want to give you some context. I am recording this preamble in my phone through a pair of headphones. I promise you the audio quality will change once you get to the episode. The original episode was recorded about two weeks ago, right after the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. At the time that was the crisis, Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara was navigating. That was the shooting he predicted. That was the breaking point he feared. And then this past Saturday, federal agents killed Alex Predy, a VA nurse, a man who was legally carrying a weapon that was taken from him before he was shot. The White House called him an assassin, a domestic terrorist, a gunman. The videos, however, tell a different story. So now there are two killings, two investigations, two examples of exactly what Chief O'Hara warned about. What happens when federal power operates without the standards that keep people safe? I'm getting ready to head down to speak about crisis management and messaging and framing. And I have to tell you, I need to keep this episode in the queue, even though it's a few weeks old and so many things have happened over the weekend, because it still, a few weeks later, is one of the best examples I have ever heard of leadership through crisis. So it was recorded before Alex Predy's death, but honestly, it matters even more now because this is what happens when the heat doesn't turn down, when the warnings go unheated, when the breaking point breaks. Let's get into it. Minneapolis just sent me over the edge when it came to news. Every morning I would usually open up my app and read the news, but I have absolutely been avoiding it. So now I have retreated into my Audible era. I finished the book Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller. He just won an Emmy for somebody somewhere. I love that show. Devastated that it only lasted three seasons. And then I just finished one called The Business Trip Fiction by Jesse Garcia. I liked it because she has newsroom experience, and the first half took place in a newsroom, and I really liked it. And then the second half was completely implausible. But back to the focus here. I was looking for a podcast. I was quickly scanning the titles, and then I landed on The Daily, of course, by the New York Times. I saw it was an interview with Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara. I did not want to re-enter the Minneapolis milieu, but this was someone we have not heard from as much compared to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry and Governor Tim Walls. In fact, on that Sunday, I did a social media post about is it ever okay to drop an F-bomb in a press conference? The answer is no, unless there is so much emotion involved, then it absolutely works. But in this episode, he's speaking with Michael Barbera, the host, talking about the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross and what happens when federal power, community trauma, and local policing collide in one city. This was not a corporate leadership theory conversation. This is what crisis leadership actually sounds like. What he was saying on this podcast is what I wanted to tell every single one of my clients. And at one point, I think I even said, you know, out loud, like, oh my gosh, this is the best interview. I'm going to give you clips of this interview to listen to, but I highly encourage you to listen to the daily. You may want to like just stick around for this one to hear why I think this interview is so good, but I encourage you to listen because in this episode, I'm going to walk you through why this interview matters, not just for policing, but for anyone leading through chaos, institutional breakdown, or repeated crises that threaten to undo years of work. But also for the news consumer, for you, the person who's listening to spokespeople, listening to press conferences, and you're trying to make sense out of all of it. Here we now have a leader who can do that. Let's start with the hardest part of leadership: saying out loud that the disaster was predictable and then you predicted it, which honestly, this is what I do in my job all the time with clients. I tell them, this will happen, this will happen, and then it happens. And it's not necessarily because the person is so brilliant and they're such a deep thinker. It's because they've seen it and they lived it. And when you're a police chief, you've seen a lot. Most leaders hide behind surprise. You know, no one could have seen this coming. It's a natural reflex, it protects you from blame. But O'Hara does not do that. When asked about the shooting, this is what he said.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. I mean, this was predictable, and it's also entirely preventable. I mean, I had been saying it for weeks. I literally said it at a press conference the day before.

Molly McPherson:

Think about what that admission does. It removes the fog. It refuses the escape hatch of nobody knew. That's what really struck me listening to it. He called it and he put accountability front and center, not just on the ice agent who pulled the trigger on Renee Good, but on the system that ignored the warnings. And then he tells you what he thought when the call came in about the shooting.

SPEAKER_00:

I just thought, fuck, this is it. You know, this is the potential here for 2020 all over again.

Molly McPherson:

There it is again. The F-bomb. It's not polished. It's not media trained. It's a leader admitting fear in real time. And I'll admit the first time I heard him drop the F-bomb, it was a nanosecond of, oh, did he need to do that? It worked, it worked. Because here's the thing that's what makes it trustworthy. Because the people on the ground living it, they're scared too. They don't need a press release. They need someone who will name what everyone already feels. One of the most striking things O'Hara does in this interview is refuse to let his officers become symbols or statistics. He keeps pulling the conversation back to humanity. Of course, when I was listening, I had to think of the bio, like, well, where does this guy come from? And in the interview, he does say that he was originally from Newark, which I misheard the first time I heard it. I thought they said New York, but it was Newark. And he has a lot of experience. Like he's an East Coast guy, but he also plays the role very much typecasting of the Irish cop, you know, deep wickham here. It's difficult. Of course, it's Chief O'Hara. But this Chief O'Hara does not embody a caricature. It's not about being the Irish cop and the Irish police chief. It is being a courageous leader. Take a listen to when he talks about the community.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And in the midst of all of those challenges, while we're trying to heal this community, while we're trying to heal the men and women who have remained here and rebuild while they're already the most scrutinized police department in the nation. And I can tell you, like the cops here, we're human beings. And it's I worry that we might hit a breaking point.

Molly McPherson:

That sentence does two things at once. First, it acknowledges that healing a community and healing your own people aren't separate goals. They're entangled. You can't do one without the other. And second, it admits the fragility, the breaking point. It's not performative. It's not theater. It's not, we'll get through this. It's just the honest truth. It's a systems break, people break, and he's watching it happen in real time. Later he adds.

SPEAKER_00:

We remained one-third below what had been typical of staffing for the police department here today, while we're dealing with a much higher level of serious street crime than what had been normal in the past. So this is adding additional work.

Molly McPherson:

If you lead anything, a team, a department, a company, you know what that means. You're already underwater. And then someone hands you another bucket. Most leaders would frame that as we're doing more with less. We need more. And spin it as grit. But O'Hara just says, hey, this is unsustainable. And that honesty is what makes people trust you when the next crisis hits. Now, here's where O'Hara does something that most leaders won't. He refuses to hide behind the legality. He doesn't say ICE doesn't have any right to be here. He doesn't pretend immigration enforcement doesn't happen. Instead, he draws a line around the important part of the ICE enforcement, and that is the methods. Take a listen. This is the move. This is where leadership lives. Because in every crisis, there's a version of the story where you point at the law, the policy, the mandate, and say, My hands are tied. And technically that's true, but it also lets you off the hook. O'Hara doesn't take that exit. He says, how you do something matters as much as whether you're allowed to do it. Dignity matters, safety matters, professional standards matter. So many times I work with clients, or I see it in the headlines, or these leaders, when faced with a crisis, they want to point the finger. They want to blame something else. O'Hara doesn't take that exit. And this is a part that will make some people uncomfortable. He applies those standards to another agency and publicly. There's a moment in the interview that feels like a leadership Warsaw chest. Host Michael Barbaro asks whether the shooting of Renee Good would have ended differently if the Minneapolis police had handled the stop instead of ICE. O'Hara doesn't hedge. He doesn't say, I can't speculate. He says No question. Such a great answer. Because then he explains why. He walks through what his officers are trained to do.

SPEAKER_00:

And the number one is you don't place yourself in the path of the vehicle. That's like traffic stop 101. You don't do that. Number one, you approach the driver, you introduce yourself by rank, by name, by what agency you work for, and you tell the person, explain why the person is being stopped. You do these sorts of things to try and ensure one, to identify yourself, but to try and ensure a level of professionalism and to try and de-escalate.

Molly McPherson:

That is the problem with ICE right now. They are having to deal with the narrative that Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, that he was acting less as a law enforcement agent and more of a military-like invasion. The New York Times posted an article last Friday about the history of Jonathan Ross and really what he is is less federal and more soldier. He was in the National Guard. He never saw conflict, but he was in Iraq. So there were questions about what motivated Jonathan Ross. And we certainly all saw the video of those last two words that were included. And of course, we all saw the leaked video. You know, I did a social media post when it came out the Friday before last. And I had asked, you know, is this a Friday news dump from the White House? Or, you know, what is it? It was in fact leak. You know, it was taken from someone from ICE or even Jonathan Ross and given to a content creator to leak it. The last two words of that video were Jonathan Ross's words after he shot Renee Good, where he said, effing bitch. And you know he didn't use the word effing. Chief O'Hara gives a quiet indictment of what he felt about how Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent, didn't try to de-escalate. It was quite the opposite. My recollection is that there was not. This is a sitting police chief publicly critiquing federal law enforcement, not with vitriol, not with politics, just with professional standards. This is what we train our people to do. That's not what I saw. That's accountability. Not performative, not defensive, just clear. And here's the part that separates good leaders from great ones. O'Hara doesn't just critique ICE's tactics. He critiques the system that put the officer in that position.

SPEAKER_00:

He says considering this agent was seriously injured in a stop, you know, somewhat recently, it certainly raises questions as to what did the agency do to protect their person. And then adds We have an obligation to ensure that our people have sufficient policies, sufficient training, sufficient experiences for the challenges that we are placing them into. We have an obligation not to send our people out there and to tell them, you know, you have a specific quota today. You have to get a certain number of people. I mean, it seems like that's the situation these folks are being placed into. And I do think they are being forced into situations in which they are not well prepared to deal with.

Molly McPherson:

This is empathy and accountability at the same time. He's saying this officer made a catastrophic error, and this officer was set up to fail by an agency that prioritized numbers over safety. That nuance is rare. Most leaders will pick a side. Either the individual screwed up or the system is to blame. O'Hara holds both. It takes a lot of courage to come out and say what he said about ice, particularly about the numbers. And he does it because he knows what it's like to lead people into impossible situations. He knows what happens when you ask exhausted, under-resourced humans to absorb chaos without breaking. This is the guy who came in after the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis. This is the guy who helped police through the Annunciation Catholic school shooting that happened last year. This is a guy who doesn't frame a lot of problems as obstacles. He frames them in the case of Minneapolis as people exercising their rights because his feelings towards protesters and community monitors is telling. Take a listen.

SPEAKER_00:

And people in this country have a First Amendment right to observe, record, and object to government activity. And that includes the activity that Minneapolis police officers do, as well as other law enforcement in our city. It is a challenge, but it's a challenge that policing in America has been dealing with and trying to improve upon for many years. It does add a level of complication to our work.

Molly McPherson:

Listen to that again. It does add a level of complication to our work. That's bold and courageous. When you know all these protesters are out there, you're saying something about them that could cause problems. It could cause a, I have to say it, like a cancellation. But it's not unfair. It's a very rational way to look at it. And he's not saying it's unfair that these protesters are there. And he's saying we can't do our jobs because of the protesters. What he's saying is it's just simple. This is hard. And we accept it because it's their right. That is what so many leaders miss. It always has to be one or the other. If there are disruptors, if there are organizers, they blame the organizers, they blame the collective action, they criticize people on Facebook groups, criticize people on Reddit groups. They call them keyboard warriors. In this case, they're actually blaming the people who are in the streets. A reason. So that's what it sounds like when a leader doesn't collapse under that pressure. Or these groups when people are online, they're not worried about being canceled. Chief O'Hara is worried that he does the job well and leads his officers well through this crisis. He doesn't need the world to be easier. He just needs people to operate with shared standards. So underneath the entire conversation is a fear that anyone who leads through repeated crises will recognize this, that one bad moment will erase everything you've built.

SPEAKER_00:

And we finally have started to rebuild. And I'm just afraid if we have another large-scale unrest, that we are both going to have a dramatic increase in crime, yet again, that's predictable, as well as another mass exodus of the department. And we just we cannot sustain that.

Molly McPherson:

That is the leadership tension in one breath. Progress and fragility side by side. You don't have to run a police department to feel that. And if you've ever led a team through layoffs, a nonprofit through funding collapse, a company through public scandal or a lawsuit, you know what it's like to watch years of trust building teeter on the edge of one event you can't control. And most leaders won't say it out loud because admitting fragility feels like weakness. But O'Hara names it and he doesn't catastrophize it. He's just honest about what's at stake. At the end of the interview, O'Hara says something that will sound naive to anyone who's been living online for the past decade. Take a listen. He doesn't want to pick a team. He wants to play it safe. But here's what O'Hara is actually saying I'm less interested in winning the argument than in keeping the system from tearing itself apart. That is not neutrality. That is someone who has to live with the consequences of escalation, who has to manage the 911 calls, the protests, the shooting, the officer exodus, and the community grief. He doesn't get to log off. He doesn't get to blame other people. He has to show up for work day after day, and the day after that, and the day after that. So when he says turn the heat down, he's not asking people to stop caring. He's asking them to care about outcomes more than performance. And this is important. You don't have to run a police department to recognize yourself in this interview. If you lead anything, a company, a nonprofit, a campus, a team, you will eventually face a moment where the crisis was predictable. You said so, and it happened anyway. Your people are exhausted, under-resourced, and might be at their breaking point. You're caught between powerful institutions, and your only real leverage is telling the truth as clearly as you can. In those moments, leadership is less about having the cleanest statement or and more about having the clearest spine. Brian O'Hara's interview with Michael Babaro isn't polished. It's strained. It's honest. It's someone admitting fear, naming failures, defending progress, and still insisting.

SPEAKER_00:

And we are proving to the world that this is possible, that this is not the same police department it was five years ago or 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

Molly McPherson:

And that might be the bravest leadership move of all. Not pretending the crisis didn't happen, not pretending you're not afraid, not pretending your people aren't hurting, just showing up, naming what's true, and refusing to let that heat destroy what you've built. That's the interview you probably skipped. But I encourage you, it matters. If you want to hear the full conversation, it's the daily. It's January 13, 2025. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara and Michael Barbaro. It's worth your time. Not because it's easy to listen to, because it isn't, but because this is what leadership sounds like when the performance stops and the real work begins. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening for now.

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Molly McPherson

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