Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed his Training Division is unlikely to meet an officer training deadline in November that was set by a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) as a part of broader police reforms put forward by the state following the murder of George Floyd.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS first learned that the department’s Training Division “does not have the capacity to deliver all mandated training in the timeframe established by the settlement agreement” from a recently obtained report regarding an independent training needs assessment completed by Chicago company Jensen Hughes at the city’s request in early January.

Responding in an interview on Wednesday, Chief O’Hara confirmed the statement in the report, adding, “This is no surprise for me. I have been through this before.”

The inability to meet training deadlines at 100% completion has been fairly typical of departments across the country that have gone through similar, substantial mandated change, O’Hara continued.

“I think we will come very close to meeting all of the training deadlines. I know we’re not going to meet all of them,” he added.

As to why, O’Hara acknowledged, “We don’t have the capacity to do that. We don’t have, you know, the training staff to do that.”

The severe staffing shortage is a part of the problem, but there’s more to it, according to the Jensen Hughes report, which detailed a lag in training at MPD all the way up the chain.

Field training officers, who will need 40 hours of training under the settlement agreement, sometimes “received as little as six hours of training,” the report read.

A few pages later, analysts concluded there’s been no formal training for newly promoted supervisors since 2022 “despite numerous promotions.”

The report also said the department does not have a master training schedule or accountability system to ensure training is completed. Instead, the analysts wrote, it is often done on an “ad hoc basis in response to recent events…”

When asked about the department’s plan to come into compliance as quickly as possible, O’Hara brought up an initial training plan submitted to MDHR.

The details of the plan were sparse but he said it’s “based on timing and how to roll out this training.”

“We have to ensure that we’re still being able to be the police and responding to crimes,” O’Hara said. “But there are other ways to get this done other than having our own people to do it.”

As the report recommended, the police chief said MPD has since contracted a couple of outside groups to help with specific training topics. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was able to confirm a February contract between the City of Minneapolis and Storm Training Group, LLC for $671,000 to assist with, in part, new use-of-force requirements.

Speaking to the cost, O’Hara said, “It’s not cheap. So this is not defund the police. This is the opposite of it,” adding, “This is going to take millions.”

O’Hara also said that the department has since submitted a training schedule to MDHR, adding, “That’s how I know where we intend to be in completing all this.”

A spokesperson for MDHR confirmed that state officials received a draft of an initial training plan from MPD but couldn’t immediately confirm whether there was a schedule attached.