5 juveniles arrested after south Minneapolis robbery spree; police credit new response protocol

Cory Knudsen KSTP

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara (KSTP)

Minneapolis police say their plan to stop an increased number of robberies is working.

During a press conference on Monday, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said that MPD, the Minnesota State Patrol and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension worked together to take five juveniles into custody.

The juveniles are accused of stealing a vehicle in the Little Earth area on Monday morning and then robbing two to three people in separate incidents in south Minneapolis. O’Hara said one incident included an elderly victim being pushed over on their bike and robbed, while another was a woman in her 50s who was strong-arm robbed.

O’Hara added that four of the juveniles were male and one was female.

Police suspect the juveniles may have been involved in other robberies that took place on Sunday, where two stolen Kias were recovered.

The new robbery response protocol implemented by MPD involves rerouting all available crews who are not responding to an emergency to the scene of suspected robberies to try and catch the suspects.

“The number one thing that has to happen now is all of our supervisors are responsible for immediately identifying, as quickly as possible, whenever we have a pattern, a spree that’s emerging … and literally stopping everything else that’s not an emergency and redeploying resources so that we can stop this problem and identify suspects as quickly as possible,” O’Hara said.

He says tips from the community can really make a difference.

“What helped a lot was citizens calling in and reporting, that they were observing a car that looked suspicious that they were driving erratically,” O’Hara said. “That helps.”