The meeting was called together on March 9, shortly after 6:30. We had attenders in person and by Zoom
Quast: I am happy to report that both the 2nd Precinct and the U of M PD have new people leading.
MPD Inspector Nick Torborg retired at the end of December. Inspector Molly Fischer began working on Jan 18.
If you’ll recall, UMPD Chief Matt Clark retired May, 2025. He has now been replaced by Chief Matt Davis whose first day was Jan. 12, 2026 [MN Daily story, see “1” at the end of this report]
I hope we will have a joint presentation to share their coordinated plans for keeping Dinkytown and East Marcy Holmes safe and safely peaceful as we head into the party season. Spring Jam is in April but dates haven’t been announced yet.
In 2024, Inspector Torborg and Nick Juarez, (then MPD-CPS, now U of MN Director of Community Engagement and DEI) presented a new coordination agreement between the MPD and the UMPD. [see 2, below]
City Council Member Michael Rainville: I just came tonight to tell you how lucky we are that we have Inspector Molly Fischer. I’ve known her for quite a while. She’s a top-notch professional. She’s going to serve the 2nd Pct. very, very well. I will turn the floor over to our newest Inspector.
Inspector Fischer: Thank you, Sir.
My name is Molly Fischer. I am the new Inspector of the Second Precinct. Inspector Torborg retired at the end of December, and I took over running the precinct on the 18th of January. I heard from Emilie that people want to get to know me. I’ll just give you a little bio of my history with the MPD here, and then I can look at the Crime Stats, and the public MSTAT meeting. If you have any questions before I have to head out, we can cover that.
I started with the MPD in 2001, as a Community Service Officer. I had already had my four-year degree from the University of Minnesota. I spent my first year as a CSO, while going back to school and getting my law enforcement degree, and then attended the Police Academy in 2002.
I spent a year answering 911 calls in the 5th Pct. Next, I moved to the 4th Pct. and handled 911 calls in North Minneapolis for another 10 years. I absolutely loved working in that Precinct. I truly believe that responding to 911 calls is the foundation of doing police work. The 11 years I spent doing that were 11 fantastic years.
In 2013, I was promoted to Sergeant and spent about seven months at the 3rd Precinct before they asked me to lead the Mounted Patrol unit. I ran the Mounted Patrol for just under five years.
I was trying to say before that I’ve actually been in this room for a 2-PAC meeting. When I was Sgt. of the Mounted Patrol, Inspector Kathy Waite asked me to come over here and introduce myself. At that time, the Mounted Patrol unit was going through some struggles. I spent some very long hours building up that particular unit. We were invited to a national conference for Mounted Patrol units across the country to give a presentation on how we rebuilt.
It was fantastic to be able to be a police officer and a cowgirl all at the same time. I knew nothing about riding horses before I started on the unit. Before I was done, I was galloping in Ireland on vacation, going from house to house for a five day trip on horseback. I absolutely appreciate everything I learned while I was on that unit.
I then transitioned to working in homicides, and did that for about a year and a half — very challenging work.
I was next promoted to Lieutenant and spent five years in the training division, where I ran the Police Academy and the FTO process. That is the Field Training Officer Program, where officers go after they finish the academy. In FTO, officers actually train in the field [under supervision] before working on their own, as solo officers.
I then spent a year and a half in 3rd Precinct as a Lieutenant, working for Inspector Gomez.
Seven weeks ago, I transitioned to be the Inspector of the 2nd Precinct.
1) MN Daily introducing Chief Davis: https://mndaily.com/campus/umn-announces-michael-a-davis-as-next-umpd-chief/12/09/2025/eicmndaily-com/ get tiny URL
3) https://courtwatch2pac.com/2016/03/23/march-2-pac-minutes/ Includes a fine example of Inspector Fisher keeping kids out of trouble. EQ: The following May, she returned with the horses for the 2nd Precinct Open House.
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Question (recording unclear) …homicide:
Inspector Fischer: One of my biggest concerns has been the uptick of homicides in the African American community.
We need to have a much more comprehensive approach to homicides, beginning with how we engage folks and children wherever we meet them: schools, parks, rec. centers, clinics, hospitals, wherever.
My concern is that we use homicide as a “stand alone investigation”. Actually, homicide is a part of the continuum of violence, including violence in the homes.
I did research on homicides and violence from1990 to 96, when I worked for the State Council on Black Minnesotans [https://mn.gov/cmah/resources/]. Before that, I did a comprehensive research for MN Rep. Richard Jefferson [https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10277 see, 75th and 76th sessions] We won a $200,000 grant for the first year, and $300,000 playing on up until 2000 to do a comprehensive approach.
One of the problems I’m having is [recording unclear “homicide”?] is not a continuum. The program was called the Martin McCain Nonviolent Institution Child Development Program.
Question: About youth (ages 9 and up) unsupervised at night in Mpls., being murdered. The attender cited the story of a 9-year old alone, who was murdered about midnight. There are other cases. Have the homicide units found areas where very young kids are out there, unsupervised? Do the Officers have an approach to parents of these kids? [EQ: similar questions deleted.]
Inspector: Those are all really good questions, sir. I’m not sure what numbers you were seeing. Our homicide rates are actually down.They have been going down steadily for the last couple of years. We were down in 2024. We were down in 2025. Our numbers this year, compared to this time last year, are also down. That is a positive thing.
Our Juvenile Division is very much involved in following up with youth who tend to get into dangerous situations.
If they have some sort of record, our Juvenile Unit is following up with those youth, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. They go to these people’s homes, talk with their families, check on the children, at the times when the children tend to get themselves into trouble. Lieutenant O’Rourke from our juvenile division started that program about a year and a half ago. We’ve seen some really good results, lowering the crime rate with juveniles
Comment: Lieutenant O’Rourke just won a national award for his Juvenile program. On Friday nights, about 9 PM the Lt.’s team goes to the child’s house, and asks “Hi, where’s Michael?” It’s been very, very effective. He won a national award for his innovation and results. [See O’Rourke’s 2-PAC Presentation here https://courtwatch2pac.com/2025/07/05/march-meeting-part-1-mpd-outreach-to-youth/]
Inspector Fischer: Moving into crime statistics, I did do the public MSTAT meeting just two weeks ago. We did a comparison of 2024 to 2025. From 2024 to 2025,assault offenses went up slightly, by 1%. That’s not a significant amount. And, we’re finding that most of that is actually reported domestic assaults. This is actually a good thing if that means it’s no longer going unreported. That’s where we’re actually seeing that uptick.
We saw almost no change in burglary. Those numbers pretty much stayed the same at roughly about 300 in the 2nd Precinct.
Vandalism and Property Damage is where we really see our jump. A lot of that is juveniles who go on sprees. They damage and steal vehicles. In the last couple of weeks, that skyrocketed [unclear: which led to arrest] last Friday. Those tend to be groups of juveniles. We’ve learned that juvenile groups have competitions, seeing who can steal the most cars. That’s causing some of the uptick.
Also, some of the damage to motor vehicles is done by people actually trying to break into a car. That crime is increasing the “damage to property” numbers. We also have sprees where people (largely juveniles) are driving stolen cars up and down the street, with baseball bats and just breaking windows. Starting last year,that definitely increased the “damage to motor vehicle” numbers.
Homicides: the 2nd Pct only had three homicides in 2024 and again 2025. The numbers were down in Robbery , sex offenses, and carjackings.
Weapons law violations were up, which means we are catching people in weapons violations. That is actually making arrests, so it’s good to have that number going up.
Question: The kids doing the damage to the cars, are they kids from the second precinct?
Inspector: It’s kids from all over and they tend to go in between precincts. They might start in the 5th Precinct, and then make their way over here to the 2nd. We have implemented a department-wide plan: when we see two or three of these offenses happen in a short time, we do a rapid response, calling in any free car in the city. The response “saturates the area” so we can try to catch the individuals in the act. That has helped, but, like most things with crime, when criminals figure out what we are doing, they figure out what they can do to try to counteract us.
When they have done 2 or 3 things in one precinct, they move to a different precinct. Then we have to catch that something’s going on somewhere else, and move our resources to that area.
The kids do come from all the precincts.
I can’t talk about what our crime analysts are doing, but they are trying to break down the trends so we can see patterns of the cars being taken from one spot and dumped in another.
Question: Do we get crime prints back on that? And do they match with a particular group of people?
Fischer: We’re really trying to actually home in on this. He then follows up with some of those juveniles. We are trying to make some of those connections.
But, when you’re talking about vehicle thefts, cars are everywhere and on every street. It’s hard to know where the next vehicle is going to be hit. So we’re working it on the backside, that is when and where vehicles are recovered to see if we can tie them back to particular individuals from that area.
Question: What is our situation in regards to suicides?
Fischer: Suicide is not reported with crime statistics. I can look into that and get back to you.
Question: What about homelessness in winter? What is the police response for that?
Fischer: In Northeast, we don’t have too much of that problem. I just came from the 3rd Pct, where many people struggle with that. Homelessness requires a coordinated response. You can’t police your way out of that one.
There are many groups that go to where homeless people hang out, offering services. The actual number of people who actually accept assistance tends to be about 8% of the people contacted. That’s a harder problem to solve: that person needs to accept that help.
For example, Metro Transit has its own team, the HAT [EQ: Metro Transit Mario Roberto describing Metro Transit’s Homeless Action Team https://courtwatch2pac.com/2019/07/28/july-2-pac-transit-police/ ]
THe MPD also has a team to reach out to the homeless. [EQ: https://mn.gov/cmah/resources/ ]
Comment: This building [Monroe Village] has been hit with a number of people [standing in the foyers, waiting to slip with a tenant.] People called 911, but officers replied they were busy doing other things.
Fischer: You definitely need to call 911 if that’s what you’re if that’s what you’re seeing. If you give me times or, or dates of things, I could definitely look things up for you and see why that was the response. But call 911 if you see this happening, and obviously close the door behind you and don’t let people in.
Comment: Inspector, there are statistics up on the screen now. These are the ones that come from Emilie. Can you tell us what larceny theft is?
Fischer: Larceny is taking something from someone intending to keep it.
QUESTION: Can we get back to the question of response time. How is staffing working out in the 2nd Precinct? Do you expect to have new people come on board? And I know, Inspector Torborg retired; there was an entire generation that stayed on a couple of years to help out the city. Now, a lot of them are starting to retire. Can you speak to those issues?
Inspector: Yes: Staffing. We lost roughly 40% of our department after 2020. For about two years, we just kept losing people. Now, we are losing people at retirement age. Our hiring numbers are up however; the numbers are starting to level off again.
I did just get seven new officers who passed their field training. They are coming to the precinct.
There are more people who are going to be retiring, and a few new units are opening up across the MPD. Some officers are going to get pulled for that. I would say that my numbers in the precinct for the next three months are going to be what the numbers were at the end of last 2025: around 50 officers.
Question: Do we have Reserve officers? And how many and what are you using them for?
Fischer: Reserve Officers get used for parades and to block traffic for events. We’ve had a reserve unit for as long as I have been in MPD. It’s not a very large group, probably 20 people. Some have been there for years, and some have actually been hired and become police officers. Some move on to do other things because it’s a voluntary position, when they’re doing police reserve.
Question: How do you coordinate with other systems and their police, or training of officers in other departments? (question for clarification) Metro Transit. How do you coordinate? Do you guys communicate well about what’s happening between all those buses? Crimes that happen on buses or on rail platforms that are Metro Transit property.
Fischer: When a bus is moving through the city, and something is happening on that bus, if that’s something that needs to be immediately responded to, and they’re not close. MPD doesn’t wait for Metro Transit to respond to that. MPD will respond to that. We can talk on the same audio channel and communicate with each other. When Metro Transit gets there, they may take the case and do the report and follow through. But it’s not as if those Police Depts. are completely separate. If something happens in the City of Minneapolis, we will respond.
The Inspector had to leave at this point. She repeated that UMPD Chief Davis intends to attend the April meeting to discuss UMPD and MPD coordinate plans for Dinkytown-East Marcy Holmes area .
Emilie Quast, Member
MPD 2d Precinct Advisory Council (2-PAC)
2nd Precinct Advisory Council 