CRABBY EXCLUSIVE: New Revelations Surrounding Chief O'Hara's Resignation

Summary

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Garage Logic – CRABBY EXCLUSIVE: New Revelations Surrounding Chief O'Hara's Resignation

Podcast Host: Gamut Podcast Network
Date: May 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this special episode, Garage Logic takes a deep dive into the controversial resignation of Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. Host Jay Coles is joined by Kenny and retired Sergeant Ken Tidgewell, offering a journalist’s and veteran cop’s perspective on the recent revelations, O’Hara’s troubled tenure, and the broader implications for the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and city leadership. The discussion covers new findings from internal investigations, the role of unsubstantiated allegations, the shadowy behavior of O’Hara’s handpicked driver, and speculation on the department’s future leadership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Chief O’Hara’s Resignation – The Breaking News

[03:52] – [05:22]

• Context & Announcement: Mayor Fry’s statement revealed Chief O’Hara resigned not over unsubstantiated sexual misconduct accusations, but for interfering with an investigation—specifically, for deleting evidence from his city-issued phone.
  • Quote (Kenny, 03:52):
    “Today I have an extremely difficult announcement… the additional investigation showed Chief O’Hara interfered. Specifically, investigators found that he intentionally deleted a contact card for an individual... in an attempt to shield that evidence.”
• Clarification on “Unsubstantiated”:
  “Unsubstantiated” means insufficient proof, not necessarily innocence—often due to uncooperative witnesses (Sergeant Ken, 05:45).

2. Pattern of Allegations and “Trust Issues”

[08:09] – [13:22]

• Early and Persistent Complaints: O’Hara arrived with a ‘heavy jacket’ (cop slang for personnel file): three major complaints in his first year—ranging from unprofessional conduct, to unreported use of force, to public dishonesty in hiring.
  • Quote (Jay Coles, 08:09):
    “I was leaked three internal investigations. We decided to air them because... it’s unusual… three within the first year, really serious allegations.”
• Highlights from Complaints:
  • Demanding nonpublic police reports from Edina PD, resorting to abusive behavior.
  • Use of force without proper reporting—caught only via another officer’s bodycam.
  • Untruthful public statements about hiring controversial officer Tyler Timberlake.
  • Pattern: All point to trust and integrity violations.

3. The Role of the Investigative Process & Internal Culture

[15:41] – [20:08]

• MPD Culture and “Jacket”:
  O’Hara’s history of issues, even before Minneapolis, suggested a problematic fit.
• Systemic Issues:
  Many complaints, but most left unresolved due to lack of “substantiation” or disappearing with resignation.
  • Quote (Ken Tidgewell, 16:14):
    “It’s public record now... if he goes for another chief job, he’s gonna have to try to wiggle out and explain his way out of this.”

4. The Chief’s Mysterious Driver: Nepotism, Conduct, and Internal Complaints

[21:51] – [29:10]

• Unusual Appointment: O’Hara is the first chief anyone recalls having a personal driver, especially one with his own problematic past (a “jacket”) from Metro Transit.
  • Quote (Jay Coles, 22:37):
    “It was weird. It was Chief O’Hara with a driver... I’d never seen that before.”
• Driver’s Misconduct:
  Video evidence shows the driver, AJ Ahmed, confronting juveniles at O’Hara’s condo complex, brandishing a firearm while in sweats/flip-flops—a major tactical and ethical violation.
  • Quote (Ken Tidgewell, 28:21):
    “If that’s the case, that’s not... the way you dress—sweatpants and a T shirt and flip flops. How tactical is that, for Christ's sakes?”
• Internal Complaints Against Driver:
  • Multiple complaints—including one by Sergeant Ken for threatening messages on Facebook Messenger. All went unaddressed and unresolved.
    • Quote (Ken Tidgewell, 35:20):
      “If I ever entered the city of Minneapolis he would arrest me, and made comments... the whole Somali community will come down on me. All documented in print.”

5. Systemic Accountability and City Leadership

[40:07] – [54:42]

• Leadership Appointments:
  Several of O’Hara’s promoted staff also have questionable records. The system rewards loyalty over integrity.
  • Quote (Kenny, 40:48):
    “Some of MPD’s newly appointed leaders have stains on their lengthy records. Chief O'Hara defends his pick...”
• Interim Chief Katie Blackwell:
  Blackwell, implicated in providing misleading trial testimony post-George Floyd, now serves as chief. Her prior lawsuit against Liz Collin and Alpha News (over perjury exposure) was dismissed with legal fees assessed against her.
  • Quote (Ken Tidgewell, 44:22):
    “She’s been rewarded correctly for being a liar and telling untruths... Now she’s chief... It's just, it’s shameful.”
  • Quote (Jay Coles, 46:43):
    “She not only received the training, Kenny, she also taught the training.”

6. Speculation on the Next Chief and the City’s Future

[50:06] – [54:47]

• Council & Mayoral Influence:
  Skepticism that any true “law and order” chief can be appointed given current council politics; expectation of another outsider or handpicked “puppet.”
  • Quote (Tidgewell, 50:06):
    “Not with this city council, not with this mayor... can't get answers... all crazy, far left extremists... deplete the department.”
• Department Bloat:
  Explosion in the number of assistant chiefs and overpaid management positions compared to the 1990s.
• Resource Priorities:
  Ridicule of council focus on global issues while core city services suffer.

7. Behind the Scenes: Journalism, Sourcing, and What Gets Left Unsaid

[64:02] – [68:16]

• Ethics vs. Rumor:
  Reporters juggle knowledge that can’t be aired without corroboration—contrasted with the less-constrained, sometimes reckless independent podcasters or “citizen journalists.”
  • Quote (Jay Coles, 64:21):
    “What you hear and what you know is different than what you can report. What’s provable.”
• Sourcing Drama:
  Anonymous tip-offs, back-alley meetings to receive internal documents—reporting sometimes more like a crime movie than a newsroom.
  • Quote (Jay Coles, 68:36):
    “That’s like out of a movie. I’m driving around south Minneapolis, hooking up with a source to get internal documents.”
• On the Culture of “Unsubstantiated”:
  The term becomes a shield; many legitimate complaints or patterns never reach discipline.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On O’Hara’s Resignation Decision:
  “The interference itself is a breach of trust... I informed the chief that I would be disciplining him... and he resigned.” – Mayor Fry, paraphrased by Kenny [03:52]
• On Police Leadership:
  “If the chief can’t be trusted, why should anybody else follow that policy? He needs to be the example there.” – Pat Nelson, [11:06]
• On The Problem with Unresolved Internal Complaints:
  “He’s wrapped up more investigations, more claims, than I think the prior five, six chiefs... you know, it’s all stemming around truthfulness, integrity, all the things that are pillars of being an officer...” – Sergeant Ken, [13:34]
• On City Dysfunction:
  “They still screw it up and can’t get it... right.” – Jay Coles, [55:47]
• On the Future of MPD:
  “That police department is doomed, sadly.” – Sergeant Ken, [53:09]

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Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |----------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 03:52 - 05:22 | Mayor Fry’s explanation for resignation | | 08:09 - 13:22 | History of complaints against O’Hara | | 21:51 - 29:10 | O’Hara’s driver controversy and internal culture | | 35:20 - 37:45 | Sergeant Ken’s firsthand account of driver threats | | 40:07 - 54:42 | Leadership appointments, Blackwell’s record | | 50:06 - 54:47 | Forecasting the new chief, city council analysis | | 64:02 - 68:16 | Backstory on sourcing, limits of journalism | | 68:36 - 69:11 | “Like a movie”: alley drop for leaked documents |

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Tone & Language

• Conversational, irreverent, and rooted in common sense (“Garage Logic” style)
• Open criticism of bureaucratic overreach and lack of accountability
• Candid, occasionally blunt exchanges among all speakers
• Mix of investigative seriousness with characteristically Midwestern wit

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Conclusion

This episode goes beyond the headlines, laying bare the culture of mistrust, failed leadership, and evasion within the MPD. The panel’s discussion underscores a repeated pattern: unsubstantiated complaints stacking up, a chief who couldn’t shed his past, and a leadership apparatus growing ever more bloated and out of touch. As Minneapolis faces yet another turning point, the hosts make it clear—without a top-to-bottom change in both MPD and city hall, the same controversies are likely to continue.

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Transcript

[Jay Coles]

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[Kenny]

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[Kenny]

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[Jay Coles]

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[Kenny]

Whether humorous tales, absurd narratives, or real

[Jay Coles]

drama, telling stories is my stock in trade. So escape to the very human Mishki Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Kenny]

I'm about to drop some deep knowledge on you, J. Coles.

[Jay Coles]

All right, thank you. I need it.

[Kenny]

We know how many times the COVID up didn't work. We don't know how many times the COVID up did work. That's pretty deep, huh? I've got a firm grasp on the obvious.

[Jay Coles]

This is why I like you, starting with your monologues because they sum it up so perfectly. That I can never do. But that nails it. I mean, that nails it.

[Kenny]

Somebody like Chief o' Hara should just know, I'm not going to get away with this. You know, that's what we do in the regular, normal, everyday world. We just. You know what? You got me.

[Jay Coles]

You got me. Well, I'm surprised it took this long after all the things I'd been hearing. I think he got here, what, late 2022, if I'm not mistaken.

[Kenny]

Yes. Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

And I started hearing things right out of the gate, Kenny, which was really unusual. As a reporter, you're going to hear some stuff. But, man, I started hearing stuff right out of the gate. And we do have standing by for those who don't have. You aren't watching us on YouTube that are just listening to us Right now, we're going to be joined by retired sergeant Ken Tidgewell, who's got a lot of experience with. Well, we had him on before with our motorcycle gangs, but welcome back. Welcome back, Ken, thanks for joining us. But he's also got some stuff he wants to talk about because he said some experiences with o', Hara directly and indirectly. So he's going to add a little bit of context to us. But, Kenny, as you and I have talked off the air, this stuff started happening from almost day one with him, which was kind of extraordinary, if you ask me.

[Kenny]

And truth be told, you guys in the cop world call it a jacket. And the chief brought a heavy jacket with him from New Jersey with all sorts of interesting things.

[Jay Coles]

And a jacket for those who don't know is their personnel file. Right, Ken? Sergeant Ken, right. Yeah. Yeah. So what we're talking about, obviously, everybody, it's the news of the day and for the next couple days, probably, is the resignation of Chief o', Hara, Brian o' Hara from MPD under accusations of misconduct. And I think we should start, Kenny. Right. With what Mayor Fry had to say about it right out of the gate. It kind of lays out why he resigned. So. Go ahead, Gabe.

[Kenny]

Today I have an extremely difficult announcement to make regarding Police Chief Brian o'. Hara. Last year we received an anonymous complaint alleging the chief had engaged in sexually intimate relationships with city employees. An outside investigation was conducted, extensive interviews were completed, and numerous staff participated. Several months ago, that investigation concluded, and we received a report stating that the allegations were not substantiated. Those allegations remain not substantiated. However, today I received a report of findings from an additional investigation that showed Chief o' Hara interfered with the investigation process. Specifically, investigators found that he intentionally deleted a contact card for an individual from his city issued cell phone during the original investigation in an attempt to shield that evidence of his connection to the person from investigators. Although the investigators have concluded that this interference does not change their ultimate conclusion contained in the ORIG report. In other words, the allegations of relationships with city employees, the interference itself is a breach of trust. Because of that, I informed the chief that I would be disciplining him up to and including discharge, and he resigned. I have accepted his resignation.

[Jay Coles]

So very significant. There again, unsubstantiated claims of sex with city employees. But so often, especially with Chief o', Hara, they've come back unsubstantiated, which I think I need to explain a little bit about. And Sergeant Ken, you correct me if I'm wrong, unsubstantiated means they just can't simply prove it beyond any kind of reasonable doubt. Right. I don't even think the bar is reasonable doubt. Preponderance of the evidence.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Right, Absolutely. It doesn't mean that the allegations aren't truthful. Doesn't mean that they're not correct. What it means most often is you might have an uncooperative witness. So maybe the person, you know in this case, the other female, one of the females that's named in this thing, not willing to admit formally that she had a sexual relationship with the chief for a hundred personal reasons. Right. But one of the things that stood out right away from that is the mayor saying that he. That there's multiple people, you know, that the sexual exploits were. There was multiple several steps. It's not. It's one female. Even mayor is saying that, you know, there's more or the navigation of this sexual assault.

[Jay Coles]

And we don't know if when he went and deleted the contact and was discussing the case with other employees like he was not supposed to, he could have deleted the contact, who had the information that could have been corroborated, and he could have been coaching them on what to say in the event of an investigation. And I also thought it was interesting that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Todd Barnett, said that Chief o' Hara did become agitated when he asked him to turn over his phone because they said they were going to go through his phone. And he got agitated, he gave him the phone, but he didn't want to give him the phone for scanning, which I think is also very telling. Wouldn't you agree?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

100%. You know, I mean, if you're. If you're innocent of the charges or the allegations, then cooperate fully. And, you know, if you got something to hide, of course you're gonna, you know, be pissed off that they're asking for this phone. And that was one of the things that was at the investigation, if you read through it was substantiated that. That he actually did. There was two. Forensic analysis is done on the cell phone. One by the investigating agency, I believe a law firm that did it, and then by the bca. And it was in that course of time between the two that that the deletion of that person's contact from his work cell phone. And then admittedly he said that he did have texts and her number on his personal cell phone and did share photos.

[Jay Coles]

So really important evidence that he was, in my opinion, looking at it. Sergeant Ken. Trying to get rid of something. Right?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

[Jay Coles]

So another thing very interesting connected to all of this, as I said to you guys at the top of the show, I started hearing things about him from Newark right from the minute he got here. And it continued for the first six months to a year. I was leaked. Three internal investigations were given to me. I wasn't supposed to have them. And we decided to air them because we thought, first of all, it's unusual to have that, to have complaints against a chief because they're not on the street. Right. Second of all, he had three within the first year and they were really serious allegations. And I did a story back in August of 2023. We're going to play for you now showing that a lot of this, at least from what I knew, was going all the way back to when he almost first started on the job. Let's play that story, Gabe. Have Eyewitness News has learned new Minneapolis Police Chief Brian o' Hara is facing at least three separate complaints, all accusing the city's top cop of violating MPD policies. And sources tell us an outside law firm has been hired to investigate. First on five tonight, Jay Coles has more on what's in the complaints, including one filed less than a month after Chief o' Hara was sworn in. Kevin these three complaints were filed with the Office of Police Conduct Review. They investigate allegations of police misconduct made to the city. Sources tell me all three are open investigations referred to an outside law firm. As of tonight, the accusations contained in each of the complaints have not yet been substantiated. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O' Hara was sworn in on November 7th. This complaint was filed three weeks later with the Office of Police Conduct Review, which is a neutral agency within the city. The complaint says Chief Brian o' Hara called the Edina Police Department and demanded that our detective give him a report that isn't public. When he didn't get what he wanted, he was abusive and unprofessional toward a fellow officer, yelling and cursing.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

It's important, and it's concerning.

[Jay Coles]

Pat Nelson is now chair of the Criminal Justice Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and spent 17 years as a Minneapolis police officer, retiring as a sergeant. She says if substantiated, this type of action would violate MPD policy. That's violating the code of conduct we

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

have for peace officers. And professionalism is actually one of our pillars of procedural justice.

[Jay Coles]

If you're trying to build trust in

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

the community, trust among your officers, and trust among other agencies, you need to stay professional.

[Jay Coles]

The second complaint against O' Hara was filed in February and says on January 27, officers responded to a help call. Chief of police used reportable force but did not do a force report. What type of force was used is not detailed in the complaint.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

The use of force is actually one of the foundational issues in the consent decree that the city of Minneapolis is

[Jay Coles]

under right now, but it has been

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

a community concern for years.

[Jay Coles]

Decades in fact. If he decides not to report reportable

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

force, then why should anybody else follow that policy? He needs to be the example there.

[Jay Coles]

And the third complaint filed in May, accuses the chief of being untruthful in public statements on the hiring of now former officer Tyler Timberlake, it says. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian o' Hara released a statement Tuesday saying he was extremely concerned to learn about the hiring and directed staff to complete a thorough investigation. A follow up article by the Minnesota Reformer clearly states Chief o' Hara personally signed off on the hiring of Tyler Timberlake. Body cam video shows Timberlake using force to arrest a suspect while working as an officer in Virginia in 2020. Timberlake was eventually charged with misdemeanor assault, but in 2022 a jury found him not guilty. He was hired by MPD in January of this year. In July, Chief o' Hara defended his actions. I would not have signed off on

[Kenny]

that hire if I had witnessed the

[Jay Coles]

behavior in that video at that time, nelson says. If the untruthful complaint is sustained, it can have far reaching implications.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

This undermines your trust building in the community and also undermines morale in an agency because how could somebody who works for him trust anything that he says? And then why would the community also trust that? In fact, this is kind of what you want to avoid in your first

[Jay Coles]

year as you're establishing trust not only

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

in the community but in your agency.

[Jay Coles]

I've reached out to Chief o' Hara and his office for an interview multiple times over the past two days and have not yet received a comment or statement. I also asked Mayor Jacob Fry for an interview or comment. A spokesperson told me under state law the mayor cannot comment on personnel matters. Now again, as of right now, none of the accusations and the complaints have been substantiated. Reporting live in the newsroom, Jay Coles, 5 Eyewitness News. And of course they were. None of them were substantiated. In the end. You know, I think it's important to note out there boys, within the first three months of his being on the job he got that first complaint. Second complaint came three months later. Third complaint came came three months after that. Three complaints within the first nine months all of them dealing with, except for one, issues of trust.

[Kenny]

Issues of.

[Jay Coles]

And then the one that gets him tossed out, or now he's resigned because of. It was an issue of trust. How critical is that? Sergeant Ken?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

It's imperative. I mean, the chief of police is held to even a higher standard than the regular guy. You're supposed to be the pillar of example. And as Patty Nelson, great cop, by the way, said in the interview, if he's not setting that standard and that example, again, his entire tenure has been one of contradiction and lies. Right? I mean, from. From the. His jacket coming from Newark, New Jersey, that same pattern. He comes here, within months, he's wrapping up multiple complaints. And it's all stemming around truthfulness, integrity, all the things that are pillars of being an officer that you're supposed to adhere to and make a party of, you know, your existence as a policeman, but as a person, for Christ's sake, don't be a liar and don't be a cheater and everything else that he's done.

[Jay Coles]

So to that point, I had sources telling me, and I didn't. I couldn't go with it. My bosses thought it was a step too far. But I can say it now. I had sources telling me he saw the Timberlake video. He was aware of the Timberlake video and hired him.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

100%.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

And absolutely.

[Jay Coles]

And then backtracked and didn't tell the truth when it came to light that he hired him. Despite. Now, I'm not even saying Officer Timberlake was in the wrong. A jury found him not guilty. The problem here was that he saw that video and then told the public he didn't see the video.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, and it's not the first time Jay did the same thing with another officer that was involved in some extracurricular activities on social media that were kind of questionable. And.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, I reported on that. You want me to tell you what it is? We can tell it is. I reported on it. Yeah, I did the story. It was a. It was an officer who had an only fans account.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Oh, correct.

[Kenny]

Mm. Well, you have one of those.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, mine doesn't do quite as well.

[Kenny]

Guys, what happens? There's 17 open complaints against him right now. He did have as many as 30. So now that he's gone, those complaints and everything is just gone. Right. No further action will happen.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

No further action unless there's a criminal issue. That there's no. No further follow up. But that just. I mean, Jay and I were talking earlier. This. This guy in four years or whatever, he's been There now, three and a half, four years. Three has wrapped up more investigations and. And claims than I think the prior five, six chiefs that I can remember.

[Kenny]

Collection. Totally talking about his jacket. Will this stick in his jacket then and hinder him from getting another law enforcement job elsewhere?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

God, I hope so. Absolutely. To answer your question, Kenny, yes. I mean it's absolutely. It's public record now. So yeah, if he goes for another cheap job, he's gonna have to try to wiggle out and explain his way out of this shit too. So we'll see.

[Jay Coles]

Well, sorry to interrupt there, Kenny, but that. That complaint about reportable use of force. Yeah, I can say this now. Do you remember Sergeant Ken when he first got here? He was running around tackling people in the streets. He was making a lot of arrests, or I shouldn't say a lot, but he made quite a few arrests. And one of them, or more than one of them, I think there were two or three where he was using force, but not. He didn't have his body cam on, which is a big problem. And the only reason he got caught. The only reason he got caught. You know why he got caught not wearing his body cam? Because the officer behind him. Do you remember this story? The officer running behind him had his body cam on and caught o' Hara tackling the suspect. And nothing wrong with tackling the suspect, Ken. Right. As we know. But Sergeant, I mean, excuse me, Chief. O' Hara didn't have his own body camera on, which is a major violation.

[Kenny]

Where'd that complaint come from? How did you learn about that?

[Jay Coles]

Well, I had three that were leaked to me at once. And I will tell you, Kenny, from

[Kenny]

somebody within the force. You don't want to answer. Yeah, let me get to my point. My point is this. This investigation that caused him to step down was brought about by an anonymous complaint, according to the mayor.

[Jay Coles]

Right. And that could be very much the case. Right. Doesn't mean it's not somebody from the MPD or even City Hall. Let me put it to you this way. I can tell you this some. This is like out of the movies. You guys are gonna laugh at me, but this is how it went down. One of my sources at City Hall. Let me just leave it at City hall rather than identifying any department, said, I've got something I gotta give to you, cuz I think you'll have the balls to report it, but it's so sensitive. And back me up on this, Sergeant Ken. If you're leaking documents about an internal investigation, that's one thing that's problematic. But when it's the chief that you're leaking information about, they were worried about more than just losing their jobs, let me put it that way. I had to meet them in an alley.

[Kenny]

Okay. This is what my question was gonna be.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. They said, meet me at such and such alley behind Moby Dicks. It won't be me giving you the documents. A friend of mine is gonna come out of the address of the garage in the back alley. So I'm driving over there thinking I didn't know what I was going to get, and I knew it was something about o', Hara, and I knew it was complaints. So here I'm driving down this alley thinking I'm like, in water. Like a rube going to the parking garage for water.

[Kenny]

Right.

[Jay Coles]

And I got the documents and she. It was a woman. I don't know. I still this day don't know who she was. She just handed them to me, turned

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

around and walked away.

[Jay Coles]

I got in the car and that was that. And then we ran the story because we felt it was, you know, obviously important that the public know, especially that he only been on the job about a year at that point.

[Kenny]

So what kind of reaction did you get from the chief and the police department?

[Jay Coles]

Really not happy.

[Kenny]

Yeah, I bet.

[Jay Coles]

I got. I got stone cold for a little while. They, they. They came around and weren't so bad, and he talked to me later, but they weren't happy about it because it wasn't supposed to be public. And. And he was the chief and he was new, so. But. But again, you know, to Sergeant Ken's point, unsubstantiated does not mean not guilty. Yeah, it's a weird thing. And you. And the reason I wanted to have Sergeant Ken on, you had a personal experience with his driver, which is interesting. And we're going to get more into his driver. He is the first chief. I've been here since 1992. And you correct me if I'm wrong again, Sergeant Ken, I have known no chief to have a driver. Have you seen a chief before him have a driver? Maybe they did. I don't know.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Absolutely not.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. Okay.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Even, you know, out of state, Bolson, Boza and Olson was out of some of the others, I believe. Both came from New York and they didn't have drivers. It's like, you know, pompous, arrogant.

[Kenny]

Let's get into that a little further, a little deeper. But first we're going to take a quick break because I want to tell everybody about Warner's Doc Dot Com. Warner stock is over there in New Richmond, Wisconsin, and they have a special going right now on skeeter boats. They're still offering this early season rebates. Not only can you find your new skeeter at Warner's dock, you also have your pick of alumacraft boats and premier pontoons. Actually, they've got nine different brands there of boats and pontoons. And if you want to upgrade that current fishing boat or pontoon of yours, Warner stock, they'll take your trade. They're also purchasing used fishing boats and pontoons up to 15 years old. Nine different brands. Did I tell you that? That's amazing. They've got everything, plus docs and lifts and everything else. Four generations of family there at Warner's Doc. 79 years in business in New Richmond. Boating not cheap. Not cheap at all. But we can trust Warner's dock to take care of you and your family with every step along the way. And you will be happy on the water this year. They're right there in New Richmond, Warner's doc. And they're on the web. Warner's doc dot com. So I'm just learning this morning about this driver and how he ended up becoming a driver. And I'm not. I don't know what can be divulged here and what can't. So, Jay, I'm gonna let you introduce this because I'll end up saying too much and I know Ken will love it.

[Jay Coles]

I was gonna say. Sergeant Ken can explain.

[Kenny]

It's Ken and Ken against Jay, right?

[Jay Coles]

It's Ken and Ken. That's why I have to go. Sergeant Ken every time. I never call him sergeant, but I gotta go. Sergeant Ken. So people listening and not watching us know who we're talking to.

[Kenny]

Just keep us out of the courtroom.

[Jay Coles]

We don't want any lawyer visits. Okay, Sergeant Ken But.

[Kenny]

So

[Jay Coles]

the best way I can put it. Let me put it to you this way. I'm out covering stuff and a lot with o', Hare, especially when he's first here. And my photographer and I were trying to park into a parking. Back into a parking spot over in northeast Minneapolis where the chief was having a public event, right? And as we pull up and start to back in, all of a sudden a Minneapolis squad cuts in behind us, pulls in and takes the parking spot in front of the.

[Kenny]

Are you kidding me?

[Jay Coles]

No. It's kind of funny. My photographer and I laughed. I said, well, you know what? It's probably a friend of mine that I know on the Minneapolis police department might have seen me and just wanted to mess with us a little bit by taking. Because clearly we were going to parallel park there. I get out and it was weird. It was Chief o' Hara with a driver and the squad car. Ken. Sergeant Ken had the number one on it. He was squad one. I'd never seen that before. So I jokingly said to the chief, I stood outside the door and I go, what are you doing, Chief? I said, did you just want to piss us off? I said, you saw I can't walk that far. Look how old I am. I started joking about it. He goes, oh, oh, we didn't see you there. We're going to back out. And he did. He backed out and let us have the space.

[Kenny]

Oh, really?

[Jay Coles]

But that was the first time I saw him with the driver, right. So I started asking around to some MPD guys I knew. I said, hey, since when does the chief have a driver? And they go, oh, it's a bunch of bullshit. No chief needs a driver. On and on and on. Which brings us to now, Sergeant Ken explaining. What had you heard about how the driver became the chief's driver?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, this guy was literally. It was a lateral from Metro Transit. And talk about come with a jacket. So the chief's driver came with a jacket from Metro Transit. And so he comes on, he's a new recruit, new officer, I think within a year's time and Ohara's appointment to chief, he had picked this guy to be his driver. And this is the same guy that was in a video later on pulling a gun and threatening some young teenage boys.

[Jay Coles]

Which we're going to get to.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

We're going to get to that. By the way, right there. He's, you know, there's some controversial stuff. There was an internal investigation, him showing up at a shooting that he was working off duty at in downtown Minneapolis. And some evidence might have gone, like video surveillance of the people that were involved in this. So there's a whole slew of history with this guy in jacket. But back to the point of his getting into that position, this guy, I mean, he's literally, you know, a brand new cop on Minneapolis police. And the chief selects him as the driver, which, you know, I mean, how about you learn the job? How about you learn the culture and what's expected of you as a police officer in Minneapolis before you jump in a squad and you start chauffeuring the chief around because he's, you know, too good to find his own way around the city. So absolute jackass crazy. I'm speechless.

[Jay Coles]

I mean, I think any of those.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

What if adding up, the mayor has a freaking driver. Right. What a waste of time and energy. We're short on 250 cops citywide to answer 911 calls. But the chief's got a, you know, a little harem of. Of Somali drivers that he's using to show from around the city. So it makes tons of sense.

[Kenny]

So he's a Somali or a Muslim. And were they previously acquainted?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Somehow I do not know that part of the relationship, but he is one of the guys rumored to be in some sort of a weird relationship with this chief. So, you know, again, where there's smoke, there's fire. Now, nothing to corroborate, no, no eyewitnesses to this sort of thing. But you know, as you'll see in the video later, I think, Jay, I mean, what are you doing at the chief's apartment after hours in sweatpants and flip flop damn shoes?

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, that's. And that's the next step I was going to take after you explained how he had the driver. What we're going to try to do, for those who are going to watch this on YouTube, there's some juveniles involved. Sergeant Ken. And as you can best explain, looks like the juveniles have gotten into the condo complex where the chief lives. There had been talk that the chief and the driver were roommates at one time. That was a rumor that was never substantiated. Regardless, somehow these kids get on the roof of the condo complex where the chief lives now. Yeah, they're probably trespassing and they're shooting looks like drone videos. And so it is a minor crime, correct? Am I fair to say? Minor crime? Right.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Trespassing.

[Jay Coles]

Trespassing. What you're about to see and what we're about to put up. And for those who are listening, go to our YouTube channel and you can see this. Gabe, if you could pull it up, we're going to see. This is now the chief's driver at the chief's condo complex. Show that if you can, Gabe.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

After hours.

[Jay Coles]

After hours, Right. After hours. So right there you see the driver and he's in a T shirt and he's in sweats. And you can also see. Keep it going forward, Gabe, just a little bit right there. Now you see right there in his right hand. Keep going, Gabe, keep going. That is a weapon. Stop it. There.

[Kenny]

That is serge. Is that a 19? What's he got there?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

You know, it's hard to tell, especially from my proximity to the screen and seeing that. I've seen the video myself. But, you know, there's. There's some. The department has about three or four different guns I think they use now. So.

[Jay Coles]

So here's what's interesting about. Here's what's very, very interesting about this. So that is clearly the chief's driver, because I've seen him and been around him enough to even I can say, yes, that is the chief's driver. That is on the roof of the chief's condo complex after hours. He's in sweats. You can take it down now, Gabe. He's in sweats. He's in flip flops. He's in a T shirt after hours at the chief's condo. Why is that a problem? On the face of it?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Appearance above and beyond anything. I mean, that's how you dress for duty. I mean, are you on some sort of protective detail? And if that's the case, that's not. I mean, that's the way you dress. Sweatpants and a T shirt and flip flops. How tactical is that, for Christ's sakes? What. Where does that say police officer? Where does that say, you know, authority? I mean, there's a hundred issues with. With that in and of itself. Fratting, fraternizing, you know, outside. I mean, the chief's got to have a comfortable separation from the people that he's, you know, ultimately in charge of. If and when there's a disciplinary issue or you're making decisions on the guy's career. You're. You're hanging out with this guy, living with them, whatever the situation is. And. And now you got to discipline this guy, which I think we'll talk about, too. Several complaints and internal investigations have been filed on this guy. And what, gone nowhere.

[Jay Coles]

And what about him pulling the weapon in a situation like that?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

100%, absolutely. Well, I was flabbergasted when I saw this. I mean, literally, we're talking a misdemeanor crime or petty misdemeanor, lowest level crime, essentially. We can. It's a trespassing charge, for Christ's sake. It's, you know, it's not a felony level. It's not a deadly force. There's. Where's the threat? And maybe you have it with you, but it's holstered, it's covered up under your shirt. I mean, there's 100 reasons why tactically and ethically, this is just a bad idea to do parents alone and see that he clearly knows something, he's doing something wrong.

[Kenny]

Oh, what body language did you come to that conclusion by?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, Kenny, I think if you Watch that video in its entirety. He's pretty aggressive. The chief's driver is pretty aggressive with these two teenage boys.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Up until point he finds that mom has that. One of the kids is like, FaceTiming mom at the time. Right.

[Kenny]

Oh, man.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

You hear her voice or know that she's on there. His whole demeanor and the fact then with that weapon, it's pulled down to the side. But, you know, these boys, and I talked to one of them personally, said that he pointed the gun at him. And, gee, I don't know. There's video on that, but he pointed the gun, which is. That's a. I mean, that's. That's a use of force.

[Jay Coles]

I can tell you this.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

By all means. On duty. You're off duty. You better report it.

[Jay Coles]

I can tell you this, guys. I've seen the whole video. I could see where the kid might have thought it was pointed at him. He kind of raises the gun a little bit. Sergeant Ken, But.

[Kenny]

Oh, that's like one of the rules about handling a firearm. You don't wave it around and use it for gesturing. Always know where it's pointed and what's behind where. I mean, it's the number one rule in firearms, handling so many odds and. Wait a second. I want to add. He had to go up there on that roof with that firearm in his hands, because you don't carry a firearm in sweatpants. Your pants hit the ground, the weight of that firearm will bring your pants down. Unless he has some kind of holster on his chest or under his shirt.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Right.

[Kenny]

So he went up there, I have to assume, with that firearm in his hand.

[Jay Coles]

Wow. Great point. Wow. Because as you see, he goes down the steps, and he's still carrying the gun in his hand. He didn't holster it.

[Kenny]

So what became of this?

[Jay Coles]

To my knowledge, nothing.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Nothing, really. The mom and one of the juveniles filed an internal complaint against the driver, and it went absolutely nowhere.

[Kenny]

Oh, man.

[Jay Coles]

And that one's Hard to say. Unsubstantiated when you see the video, but somehow it did.

[Kenny]

Is that officer still employed there, or are we to assume that as of today, he might no longer have a job?

[Jay Coles]

It's a good question. To my knowledge, he. Of course, I left.

[Kenny]

Or would the union protect that?

[Jay Coles]

They might defend it. They can't really protect against the evidence. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. Do you know, Sergeant Ken? Is he still on the department? I don't even know.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I don't know. To my knowledge, as of today, he's still Gainfully employed by Minneapolis Police Department.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. So now you fast forward even a little bit more, Kenny. And this was something I had talked with Sergeant Tidgewell about. This was maybe a year ago, Sergeant, when you contacted me, let me know.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

A year and a half ago.

[Jay Coles]

Year and a half ago, you let me know that you were filing an internal complaint against the driver.

[Kenny]

Oh.

[Jay Coles]

Because explain what happened there. I saw these text messages or the. I shouldn't say they were Facebook exchanges, right, Sergeant?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah. On messenger. Messenger. So I'll segue into this thing. So there's a retired Minneapolis site on Facebook started by a couple of our old guys. There's probably a couple hundred members on this thing. Everybody's invite only. It's like private on Facebook. You can't have access to it unless you're a member. And so there was some commentary back and forth about the current cops and their attire, right? Beards, baseball caps, essentially. They look like garbage in my estimation. Personal opinion. Beards and facial hair. You don't have that stuff when you're in uniform. You're working, you know, undercover gig or a narc gig. It's acceptable there. But if you're in uniform, that was the topic of conversation on this Facebook page. And. And so the chief's driver was brought up because every time you saw the chief, right, they love to plaster his face all over the media and. And show all this stuff and what he's involved in. And he's out in foot chases and trying to pump this guy up with this horrible jacket from New Jersey, by the way. But long story short is in every frame, you're seeing this chief's driver with him with this beard that hangs down, you know, mid chest, and. And it just looks like crap. Well, I commented to that effect on this Facebook. Private Facebook account for the retired guys. And clearly there's a rat in the. In the house. Somebody saw that cut and paste my comment and must have sent it to him or sent it to the chief or whatever in regard to my comments. Next thing I know, a short time later, I get a Facebook messenger notification from this guy, this AJ Ahmed. I'm like, who in the hell is this? I have no idea who. Who you are. And he goes into a tirade of. Of, how dare you have the balls to, you know, say it to my face? And I'm like, dude, I don't even have the first clue because I didn't recognize the name or know that that's who the chief's driver was. It took me about four or five Exchanges to finally figure out who this clown was. And then the gloves came off because his messages to me got more and more inappropriate and more and more threatening. Now, this guy's a city of Minneapolis employee, police officer, chief's driver. I'm a civilian. I'm retired. I can say any goddamn thing I want to say. And I did. And so we had an exchange between us, and some colorful language was used, and some things were said. This guy went on not only to use some. A lot of vulgarity, make threats to me, said that if I ever entered the city of Minneapolis that he would arrest me, and made comments to the fact that I didn't know who he. I was effing with, that the whole Somali community will come down on me. These are all statements and threats documented in print. And so I had spoken to some of the guys at the Federation. You know, I'd never done this or filed a complaint on a cop ever in my career. Never would have thought about, you know, I mean, you handle that in house. You kick their ass, do whatever, but, you know, to go formal like this. And so these guys had suggested, well, what option do you have? You're a civilian. Take the complaint. So I made the complaint with Internal affairs and opcr, Office of Police one time by opcr, never by Internal Affairs. And. And as far as I know it, like all the rest of the investigations against his clown went. Went to the wayside, right in the wrong file.

[Jay Coles]

And I've. I've read the thread, Kenny, The. The Facebook thread, the messenger thread. Yeah, it was pretty. It was. He. I mean, I. I think it's fair to say he threatened you. In my opinion, there was some threats. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was pretty.

[Kenny]

I have a question, a side question. How is his spelling?

[Jay Coles]

Oh, I can't recall, to be honest with you.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I think I commented on that.

[Kenny]

You can always tell who a person is by their spelling.

[Jay Coles]

Well, I remember telling Sergeant Ken, if there's action taken on this, in other words, if there's some discipline, pretty sure we'd be able to report on it. And of course, there was no discipline on it. Nothing ever. And the OPCR which Sergeant Ken is referring to is the Office of Police Conduct Review as well as Internal Affairs. So two different bodies had it. And so at that point, once again, when there's nothing there, Kenny, quote, unquote, nothing there in terms of the end of the investigation, how do you do a story? There's nothing you could hang your hat on. So I thought it was very. Today as we talk about all of this, I think it's all very, very relevant. Very relevant because as Sergeant Ken pointed out, that guy was handpicked by Chief o'. Hara.

[Kenny]

It must drive you crazy to be sitting on stuff like that and not

[Jay Coles]

able to report all the time. Legitimate, Kenny, all the time.

[Kenny]

That would make me insane.

[Jay Coles]

I hear so much stuff.

[Kenny]

The shit I know, you know, and

[Jay Coles]

there's a lot of truth to that. And as Sergeant Ken can tell you as a reporter, the reason you get people telling you what's going on is because they trust that you're going to be. You're going to handle it properly. Like, in other words, I don't think Sergeant Ken would have dealt with me if I was irresponsible and just reported everything I heard. You have to wait to be able to build up some credible evidence. It doesn't mean I didn't believe it. You know, when there's, as Sergeant Ken said, when there's enough smoke, Kenny, when you start hearing about public officials over and over and over with similar scenarios over and over, you start to, you know, there's always one offs here, one offs there, not much of it. But when there's a pattern, it's always the pattern that intrigues me. And then, of course, without even saying it's the COVID up, when you start figuring out what the COVID up is, then it really becomes something. And even worse. Cover ups, always the worst.

[Kenny]

So I have a copy of the investigative report around the COVID up, and it's lengthy and wordy and tedious. But it's worth noting that it was a friend of a friend of a friend. I heard this. And then the one guy who we call Witness A actually went to the investigators and said, here's what I know. I recorded a conversation with city Employee one. Witness A talked to city employee one about what city employee knew about City Employee two. Yeah. So the investigators call in City Employee one. He confirms everything on that tape recording of our phone call is correct. Then they call in City Employee 2. And me being the salacious type, I was looking for references to sex. I wanted to know if City Employee 2, which is the person who allegedly was having a relationship with the chief, was a boy or a girl. Turns out, I don't think they wanted to reveal it, but a couple of instances, they referred to City Employee 2 as a her. So we know it's a woman.

[Jay Coles]

And I knew who City Employee 2 was before it was named as City Employee 2.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Sergeant Ken. Sorry, Kenny, Sergeant Ken, didn't employee two get a promotion while o' Hara has been in charge? I believe that's the case. Correct. I don't want to say what the promotion was. Am I right?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, let's just. Yeah, under o', Hara, I think they've about tripled the amount of appointments. It's commander positions, so there's a commander literally for every day of the week and weekends.

[Jay Coles]

I mean, there's more Deputy chiefs than I've ever seen before. There's more commanders than I've ever seen before.

[Kenny]

Well, speaking of that, snooping around, I found a Dina Winter piece when she. Maybe she's still with the reformer.

[Jay Coles]

She's Star Tribune now.

[Kenny]

Yeah, she's Star Tribune. The headline being, some of MPD's newly appointed leaders have stains on their lengthy records. Chief o' Hara defends his pick, saying some of them are the finest leaders to ever don the patch. And it goes on to name people like Christopher Gators, John Kingsbury, Christy Nelson, Christopher Granger. Don't worry, I'm getting to my point here. Nick Torborg and Katie Blackwell. Now, we all know about Katie Blackwell. Yeah, that was the reaction I was waiting for, Sergeant. Yeah, we know about Katie Blackwell. Due to the George Floyd trial, I think there's.

[Jay Coles]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, though, Ken. I think there's also one more, if I'm not mistaken, Internal Affairs. The head of Internal Affairs, Wasn't that Montgomery? Mark Montgomery. Right.

[Kenny]

That's the only name I couldn't find in Dina's story for. It's from 2023.

[Jay Coles]

Okay. I think he went from head of Internal affairs to a commander, did he not? Or Deputy Chief, Am I right? Ken Tidwell, Deputy Chief, Deputy Chief. Yeah. So he went from head of Internal affairs to Deputy chief. So there's another one on that list that went up.

[Kenny]

So, ironically, Katie ends up. She's running the show now. It might be temporary, it might not. Wondering if you guys want to get into that a little bit here.

[Jay Coles]

Well, go ahead, Sergeant.

[Kenny]

Ken, let me take a break, okay? Prepare your mark remarks. Think about this.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Let my blood pressure come down.

[Kenny]

I can see already the steam coming out of your ears. Sarge, I want to talk about. Yeah, I want to talk about Schoonover Body Works and Auto Care. We all know that everybody at garagelogic has been going to Schoonover Body Works and Auto Care Open Shore View for a long time. And I was actually in the Metro last week, and my truck was in their care for a couple of days. They put in an idler arm, a Pitman arm, a new manifold, a bunch of bolts, an oil change. You should see my spark plugs. Oh my goodness. I don't got 185 on that thing. I don't think I've ever put in spark plugs. Moral of the story. Oh, and when I picked up the truck, it was brand new. I couldn't believe how clean and wonderful it was. And they kept me informed along every step along the way. My guy was Quinn. And working with Quinn and Nikki, I always knew what was going on with that. They told me it would be ready by 5pm on Tuesday. It was ready by 4:30. And they really met my expectations. They will meet your expectations. That vehicle will come back to you better than new. And if you have a crash related issue or something you had to turn into your insurance company, they will be your advocate with your insurance company. You don't have to fight with your insurance company. They'll take care of everything. They are the official repair shop of both the Crabby Coffee Shop and Garage Logic. They're on County E in Lexington, Inshoreview and on the [e-mail] okay, Katie Blackwell, discuss.

[Jay Coles]

Well, I'll let Sergeant Ken handle this one. The way I got to know Sergeant or well now Deputy Chief Blackwell, she was the inspector of the fifth precinct when I got to know her. But Sergeant Ken, you can answer Kenny's question. Go ahead.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I'm trying to find words. Seriously, the testimony. Well, let's go back and kind of start where it really blew up with Katie and her perjury in line during the Shoban trial in regard to training and files and misappropriation of those files out of the training curriculum and files and you know, the Liz Collins piece that exposed all of this. And you know, Derek's mom has done a huge amount of work proving, you know, that this was part of the curriculum taught to every Minneapolis police officer. And Katie Blackwell sat there and as I think a commander at that point in charge of training and has risen through the ranks. And she's been rewarded correctly for being a liar and telling untruths and you know, playing the game of people appointed that put her in those positions. But I, I'm just, yeah, I, I'm like beyond words of, of angry and dissatisfied with everything. And now she's the chief of that city, albeit interim, hopefully before they find another one to come in. But this woman in the last decade has done nothing but lie and, and, and I mean dishonored that uniform. In that badge. And it's just, it's shameful.

[Jay Coles]

And she did file a lawsuit against Liz and Alpha News for that report.

[Kenny]

Tossed it out and laughed at her. And she had to pay Alpha, did she not?

[Jay Coles]

She had to pay the, I believe, the attorney's fees.

[Kenny]

Yeah, I believe.

[Jay Coles]

I'm pretty sure that's. That's the case. So ultimately the case was dismissed with. With now the. Basically the judge saying it didn't have any merit. And now you cost, you know, Alpha News and Liz is a lot of money. So you're going to pay the attorney's fees. That's kind of the. I don't want to say punishment, if you will, but that was the judge's ruling to pay the attorney's fees. And essentially Liz said what Sergeant Ken was pointing out. Liz and Alpha News reported that officers were saying, hey, she's perjured herself. She knows about this training. She administered the training. She not only received the training, Kenny, she also taught the training.

[Kenny]

Okay, you guys are lawyers. Tell me why that isn't the basis for a retrial or to toss out the original judgment. I don't understand how this works.

[Jay Coles]

That's a really good question. Yeah, I don't have enough legal expertise at all. I don't know why. I don't know, Kenny. Good question. I don't know why I wouldn't.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah, you need an attorney on there to. To explain that to people.

[Jay Coles]

I guess, you know, a lot of questions. Yeah, I guess you would have to. I guess it would have to be. I'm just guessing to some extent here, she would have had to been charged with perjury, found guilty of perjury. Right. In order for it to have probably. You know what I mean?

[Kenny]

That makes sense because it kind of

[Jay Coles]

came after the fact.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

After the verdict had come down. And I don't think that's ever been the case. I don't think she's been charged with perjury.

[Kenny]

Right. No, you're right. Okay. So going forward. Go ahead, Ken. I'm sorry.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Nobody in that city, Kenny or Jay, is going to end up, you know, charging. I mean, how do you not. She wasn't the only one to purge herself on that stand yet. Zimmerman, you had a couple others on there that all got on and lied to the same effect that I provided the photo to Liz and for the lawsuit of Katie Blackwell during the hockey riots back in 13 or 14, doing the knee to neck MRT stuff. Right. To a rioter that she was pinning to the ground. And she's Then, you know, flash forward to 20 in the trial denying that she, you know, it was a, you know, some sort of a made up event and you know, never. We were never trained in it. And here I had photos of her doing it, you know, a couple years prior.

[Jay Coles]

I didn't know you gave the photos. I didn't know those photos came from you.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah, I posted them. I actually. And we posted it in our anniversary 150 year anniversary book and.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, and am I off base? Sergeant Ken, not only was there evidence that she had used that type of force, that part of the training, but didn't she also teach that part of the training?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah, yeah, well, she was in charge of training at that time. I think Johnny Mercell was the worst guy back then and he went hook, line and sinker right with her garbage testimony and lied to saying that, you know, that was never taught. It was never in the curriculum. And Alpha News during that Liz's case, they produced tons of photo video, all of it of current and past academies and recruits going through doing that training and that exact maneuver.

[Kenny]

If you watch that piece, that Alpha piece, it pretty much explains to you that the verdict was decided before the

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

trial even started, 100%

[Kenny]

going forward. We had an interesting discussion on Garage Logic today about the future chief and who that may be and how that person, male, female or other. And we discussed other is going to be approved by the city council. And you know, we're just armchair Monday morning quarterbacks, pundits. We decided that whoever's appointed is going to be a puppet of the city council. Do you see anything else other than that happening? Will we get a true law and order police chief? Somebody like say, Booker Hodges,

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

you know, Kenny and Jay? Not, not with this city council, not with this mayor. I mean, look at the amount of COVID up fraud, criminality, activism, everything else that that entire entity is a part of. You know, we can't get answers on, on where all the. The Somali fraud money went to or who's involved. And when they do go to trial, it ends up, you know, reducing sentences and everything else. So with the, with any of the. Probably the majority. I think you guys discussed it when you have Bob Croll on other than one or two people that are kind of pro cop on that city council, there's nobody. They're all crazy, far left extremists that, you know, we couldn't defund out the cops. So we'll do it through attrition and making life miserable and depletion in the department.

[Jay Coles]

Wow. Well, thanks for joining us. Well, conversation. You're not done yet, Kitty.

[Kenny]

Sorry. I. I want to talk about those council members. I'm, you know, and this is pure speculation. I. I see Latricia as pro police.

[Jay Coles]

I'll say that's true.

[Kenny]

Mike Rainville, Schaefer.

[Jay Coles]

I was. You know, she hasn't been around very long, but if I had to guess, I would say yes. I think she got the endorsement of the. Of the union. Police union.

[Kenny]

Yeah. And maybe, possibly. I don't know enough about Pearl Warren. She's Ward 5. She's new. Maybe Pearl.

[Jay Coles]

I would say Pearl too, because she's very much in line with Latricia on police.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

So if I had to.

[Kenny]

Yeah, that's the vibe I got from Latricia.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, I would agree. Outside of that.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

All right, well. And I think. I don't know all three. The other three, you know, were kind of the evil necessity, you know. Yeah. Might they have. They understand that they need police in that city. Other. Otherwise you're going to have complete and utter chaos. But, you know, Rainville's always. And his entire family have always been big police supporters. But, you know, they've all got to kind of tote the line, regardless of their support for police. They know that there's a base out there and other members are going to shred them if they show too much support.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, I can't imagine it's probably going to. Kenny. I wouldn't be surprised if it's another outsider by the term outsider, meaning outside of mpd. What do you think, Sergeant Ken, you think they'll go internal or outside? I think they're going to go outside.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, I'll tell you, there are still some good, really good cops left there that would absolutely do a phenomenal job. I won't name them, so I don't put any heat on them.

[Jay Coles]

But what internal guy would want that job? What internal guy would want.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, that's, that's my.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Who would want that position? Right now you couldn't pay a normal, rational person enough money to go in and do that job. And think about back to o'. Hara. He beat out two minority oppositions in his winning of that police position as a white male out of Newark, New Jersey. So clearly there was something that. That fray in there. There again, what are you going to do when you got this, this mayor that's in charge of the police department? You know, it's. That is, until you get rid of him and you get rid of 90% of that city council, that police department Is doomed, sadly.

[Kenny]

By the way, According to Google AI, the Minneapolis police chief has an approved salary of 253 to 300,000.

[Jay Coles]

Sounds about right.

[Kenny]

Yeah. Yeah. Are we gonna.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Have you done the math? On total expenditure of all the chiefs, the five chiefs, the assistant chiefs, all the commanders, and they're worried about overtime.

[Kenny]

Oh, that's interesting. What a great. That's a great question. I have not.

[Jay Coles]

I have not either. And I, you know, when I. When I think about it, when I. Ken. Sergeant Ken. If I go back to the mid-90s, when I got here, 92, correct me if I'm wrong, I think there was the chief and two deputy chiefs. I mean, two assistant chiefs. Was there even two? Or maybe just one?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I think there are two. You had two of them. I think there's always been an assistant chief. Yeah, an assistant chief got a chief assistant, two deputies.

[Jay Coles]

Right. That's what I mean. It was an assistant chief and two deputies. I remembered one assistant chief. And now I think there's. Is there three assistant chiefs? Three or four? I should know this, but I haven't been

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

there. I think there's four assistants, deputy chiefs.

[Jay Coles]

Okay. Deputy chiefs. How many assistants?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Then there's two civilian, I believe. Then there is three assistants. I think they just hired an ATF guy. I don't know if he's a deputy or an assistant.

[Jay Coles]

Okay. That's top heavy compared to what it was in the mid-90s.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Well, look at City of Minneapolis City Council, for Christ's sake. You got 13 members for a city the size of. I mean, Chicago, Louisiana, Boston, New York, don't have 13 council members on there. And then you got an assistant and an aide for each of those positions. So. Talk about per diems and a waste of money.

[Kenny]

And the city's council's main focus is Iran, Trump, Egypt or not Egypt, Hezbollah and Israel.

[Jay Coles]

Well, you can even look at it this way too. Minneapolis isn't that much bigger than St. Paul really in terms of population. Right.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Anymore.

[Jay Coles]

Not anymore. So. Yeah. And over there, that's a part time city council with seven city council members that are all part time. Not 13, but only seven. And all of them are part time, not full time, so.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Right. And you look at a big county like in LA City, I think they're at seven too. But we need 13 in Minneapolis.

[Jay Coles]

Wow.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

And they still screw it up and can't get it.

[Jay Coles]

Right.

[Kenny]

Have we missed anything? Anything you need to get off your chest that we haven't covered yet, other

[Jay Coles]

than that Hams T shirt?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

You Sergeant Ken I already know I'm

[Kenny]

going to be talking to our lawyers before next Wednesday.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, you probably. I think we did pretty good. I think we stayed within the lane. Anything other than the hands T shirt you want to get off your chest?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I think we've discussed it. I mean, you guys have at length, I think had some great guests on and talked to, you know, some good folks about most recent with Bob Kroll about, you know, the department direction of it, future of it. And it's really, you know, a precarious kind of scary future. And, and I know I just had one of the. The current act of cops within two weeks ago tell me that morale right now is lower than it has ever been post riots of the George Floyd debacle. Well, now with this overdose. Not a homicide, that was an overdose.

[Jay Coles]

And now with this latest thing going on, it's not going to get much better. But thanks for joining us, Sergeant Ken, and taking the time to share all this with us. I think you should, though, Sergeant Ken, tell Kenny what you're going to do next week. He'll love this. Kenny will eat it up. Tell him what you're going to do. Tell him what you're going to do.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah, I'm headed out to Kansas to do some winter wheat harvest with. With family, which I've done for.

[Kenny]

Oh, well underway. Are you. Are you a grain cart driver?

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Grain cart. I run the grain truck, the semi, wherever they need me.

[Kenny]

There is no person that's picked on and abused more than the guy that drives grain cart. The combine driver is PO'd at you. The semi drivers are PO'd at you.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Right?

[Kenny]

You're doing. You're going street road speeds in a field, bouncing up and down, trying to make everybody happy and everybody hates you. You take. If the combine gets a flat tire, it's the grain cart driver's. Yeah, right.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. I told you Kenny would like this.

[Kenny]

Yeah. Good luck.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

I love it. I absolutely love it. Nothing better than, you know, eastern Kansas wheat fields and getting out and doing that work. So.

[Kenny]

But I start when I started doing, driving grain cart. The tractor was miserable. It was hot. Course it had a cab, but it wasn't air conditioned. It was dusty. It was nasty. You'd go home and you were just covered with dirt. But now it's in a John Deere. It's air conditioned. Steer with one finger. The throttle is a little roller dial and you got the radio blasting. It's kind of fun actually.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Kenny, Satellite radio. They have chairs that actually vibrate now. So they massage you to Keep the blood flowing. And the tractors actually pretty much drive themselves.

[Jay Coles]

I was gonna say, my son works on a big dairy farm in western Wisconsin. He said, dad, it's not too bad in the summer anymore. Air conditioning, music. And all I do is flip a switch and the tractor drives itself back and forth.

[Kenny]

The tractor talks to the combine. So you just sit there. Wa.

[Jay Coles]

You know, so here I thought Sergeant Ken was going to go out in that dusty 110 degree heat in Kansas and harvest wheat. And he's like, well, well, not really.

[Kenny]

Well, he's still getting the blame for everything that goes wrong, Jay. So there is that.

[Jay Coles]

Well, good luck next week.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

That's why I spent. Yeah, I try to spend my time in the semi dry, but, you know, there's no air conditioning in that. So, you know, and they're. They're nice semis, but. Yeah, that gets pretty warm out there.

[Kenny]

Yeah. Well, the semi driver is never back on time. Where the hell is he? He left 45 minutes ago. He should have been here two minutes ago. Where is he? You know, so everybody but the combine

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

driver, wife's uncle, thinks that thing is a race car. He drives it like a race car.

[Jay Coles]

I love farm talk. I do.

[Kenny]

Oh, yeah.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

And drives that thing. It's insane.

[Jay Coles]

You know, I love. I love farm talk now, especially with Kenny. And my son can talk Kenny's language in your language. I can't talk at all. But I told you this story before, Sergeant Ken, where I grew up in Racine, Wisconsin. Both my uncles were cops in Racine. Very much a city kid. You know, back alley, street ball, the whole nine yards. My dad, when I would complain about the chores my dad would want me to do because he worked in the steel foundry and I had chores to do and they better be done by the time he got home. This, that and the other. And if I started to complain just a little bit, he'd get up from the kitchen table. I probably told Kenny these stories. He'd say, just a minute, I'm gonna go call Uncle Bill. And Uncle Bill was our dairy farmer in Walworth county, two hours away. And he'd say, uncle Bill, Jay thinks he's got it hard here.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

So how about he come to the farm for a couple of weeks, throw

[Kenny]

bales for a week, see how that goes.

[Jay Coles]

This was 1972, man.

[Kenny]

Yeah. So you were throwing bales.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, my God, I wanted to kill myself. My dad would drop me off and say, I'll see you in two weeks. Yeah, I never complained about chores again ever again. And My cousins would put me on the manure. Manure spreader.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

Which was an open thing back then.

[Kenny]

Splashback. So you get the back of your head, that odor, it takes about six months to get that stink out of your skin.

[Jay Coles]

Kenny. I got so excited when they go, jay, we're gonna put you on the manure spreader. So. Because I thought that was going to be easier than the bail and the hay we were doing, right, Kenny? Yeah. So I'm thinking, oh, the manure spreader, great. That's a piece of cake. Well, they knew the. Was going to fly and fall all over me. So I'm halfway down a row covered in horseshit or cow shit rather than. And that was my experience on the. On the farm. And I thought to myself, if I never have to do this again, I'll be happy. But I didn't appreciate farm work. And now the farm talk from my son and you guys is just the best. Because now it sounds kush compared to

[Kenny]

what it used to be. I wouldn't call it kush, but it's all right.

[Jay Coles]

Okay.

[Kenny]

Thanks, Sergeant. Really appreciate it.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yeah, you guys, thanks for having me. Appreciate you. I appreciate the call. Jay. Last minute a couple hours ago.

[Jay Coles]

I'm sorry. I told Kenny, I go. We had a whole show planned last night. He resigns at 9 o' clock last night. I got up this morning and scrapped everything. Started calling everybody to see what. And we talked about you right away because I knew about the history with the driver. So thanks for doing it on short notice. I appreciate it. He was gonna. Kenny. He was in the dentist's chair getting worked on.

[Kenny]

Oh, well, anything's better than that.

[Jay Coles]

I'm texting and calling like a jackass.

[Kenny]

Even being a green cart driver is better than that, right?

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

All right, all right. We're gonna cut you loose, Sergeant. I have a few closing comments I need to share with Jay.

[Jay Coles]

Good luck in case you guys.

[Kenny]

See you.

[Jay Coles]

See ya.

[Sergeant Ken Tidgewell]

Yep.

[Kenny]

So Kohl's. Yeah, I've made reference to this. First of all, before I go any further, I need to make a correction, something I said earlier on Garage Logic. Joe asked me if it was an anonymous complaint that led to this investigation. I said no, it was an anonymous. Anonymous.

[Jay Coles]

On this one, the most recent one. Yeah, yeah.

[Kenny]

So I wanted to fix that and make that right. Second, I've often complained that the Internet. We know too much now because of the damn Internet. I know stuff I don't want to know. And you know that that'll push other knowledge out of your head. So you're losing knowledge. You want in favor of knowledge of like the last hour. All this bullshit that I didn't know about last night, that I know about today. It's all the Internet's fault and your fault.

[Jay Coles]

My fault.

[Kenny]

What I really want to complain to you about is the stuff I know about now that I can't talk about.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

This is driving me crazy. And I have. It started out with one person and one thing, and now I have a list of people and things that I know that I can't share with anybody. And I've told my wife, and she looks at me and says, no, you're crazy.

[Jay Coles]

You can tell Deb anything I share with you.

[Kenny]

And I have to tell her, don't share this with anybody. You could get killed. Because she loves talking. She's really like you. She's really good at words.

[Jay Coles]

We just never stop talking. We don't say much. We never stop talking.

[Kenny]

How do you carry all that crap around with you?

[Jay Coles]

I. You know, I did. I think you just learn over time, Kenny, that it kills you because especially when you see a. Let's say, for example, if there's a politician having a news conference and you know every single thing they're saying is not true.

[Kenny]

Complete bullshit.

[Jay Coles]

You can't do anything.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

Because you don't have enough either sourcing on it or anybody on the record. You got to get people on the

[Kenny]

record, which in theory is what you've been carrying around with you. Every time you hear a Chief o' Hara press conference, you're thinking about all the stuff you know that you can't report.

[Jay Coles]

Correct? Yep. And you and it. A lot of reporters in this town will tell you the same thing. What you hear is different. I put it this way. What you hear and what you know is different than what you can report. What's provable. Right. And it just go. I can't tell you how many times I've known something and couldn't go with it. And then it ends up breaking.

[Kenny]

Here's my theory.

[Jay Coles]

You just go with it.

[Kenny]

Here's my theory.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

And until recently, I really didn't like Nick Shirley.

[Jay Coles]

Right. Well.

[Kenny]

But here's. Here's what I finally come. I finally realized. And I've accepted the fact that we needed Nick Shirley.

[Jay Coles]

Right.

[Kenny]

Because of his massive audience.

[Jay Coles]

Correct.

[Kenny]

He is not held to the same standards.

[Jay Coles]

Right.

[Kenny]

That you are.

[Jay Coles]

Correct.

[Kenny]

How about if we feed Nick Shirley all of this shit that we can't talk about, Let him break the story. Story. And then we can talk about it.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. It's not a bad idea, actually, because you're right. I've never been on that bandwagon to really go after Nick Shirley. All I can try to do is explain to people that what we do in the mainstream media is so different from what he can do and what he can. It's just different. But to your point, Kenny, I would also sit there and go, well, he's getting to the heart of it. He's getting to the root of it.

[Kenny]

He is.

[Jay Coles]

He's taking a lot of risk though, a financially, he could get sued real bad at some point if he's not careful. And he's also risking his personal safety greatly by really going. Going full bore. But. But to any independent journalist, any reporter, I would say, you got to do what you got to do. I got to do what I got to do. And, and the nice thing about this show though, Kenny, is I can open up a little bit more and share a little bit more like everything we talked about today. I don't think I would have been able to report tonight on Channel 5. But now that he's resigned, I feel just perfectly fine talking about all the things I had heard because now he's left in disgrace and because of misconduct. All similar in the misconduct. Kenny, I think it's important to point out what he resigned over was similar to what I had already heard, right? And one other thing I'd heard about him. When you see that little comment from the Edina police chief that came from the Edina police chief, by the way. I know, I happen to know that his yelling and cursing at their officers, right? Saying, give me that police report. I don't care if it's private or not. I know two people who work directly for o', Hara. Two that left working for o', Hara, who told me he is a screamer and a yeller. They said he would scream at people, yell at people. Oh, pound the table. He's a table pounder. They said he was absolutely crazy at times, so. And again, I never reported any of that. I never reported any of that.

[Kenny]

That didn't go two ways, cuz such does that to us. But then the four of us do the same thing right back and then we're all happy. We're all like, oh, that felt good. All right, what are we doing today?

[Jay Coles]

Good, good therapy. I love you guys. You're the best.

[Kenny]

But I, I really hats off to Sergeant Tidgewell. I didn't know any of that stuff about A.J. ahmed the driver. I had no idea.

[Jay Coles]

And I had, you know, Talked to Ken about it, because when he filed the complaint, I said to him, like, God, you know, Ken, it's like any of these other things. If they don't find him, if they don't sustain it and give some kind of discipline, I don't have anything. I don't have much here. Right. Because it's not like he's the chief of police. Right. He's the driver. So it's a different standard. But I can tell you this, Kenny. I've seen the Facebook exchanges between the driver and him.

[Kenny]

Wow. Wow.

[Jay Coles]

He was basically telling. He was telling Sergeant Ken, if you come into town, you know, I'm gonna, you know, mess.

[Kenny]

What kind of bullshit is that? That's like something out of a movie. It really is. Well, remember I told you, come into my parish, boy. You know what I mean?

[Jay Coles]

Well, when I got the call, when I got the three internal complaints in August of 2023, you're gonna meet me in this alley. Here's the address. It's gonna be a garage in an alley. It's gonna be a woman that's go. I mean, come on, Kenny. That's like out of a movie. I'm driving around south Minneapolis, hooking up with a source to get internal documents. You know, it was funny.

[Kenny]

Yeah, and you don't care either. No, I. Yeah, you're just the room rolling out. I thought it was.

[Jay Coles]

I came back to my boss and said, you're not gonna believe this, but they want me to meet him in a back alley in a garage to get these documents.

[Kenny]

God, I would have taken an off duty with me. You gotta do me a favor. I'm not there. Okay, as soon as our music plays out, I want you to walk over to Gabe and kiss him on the

[Jay Coles]

mouth because he's done such a great job today.

[Kenny]

Never go on vacation again, Gabriel. Or you know what? I have a better idea. When Gabe goes on vacation, the show goes on vacation.

[Jay Coles]

I'm with you on that. When you told me he was back from Italy, I did a little. I did a little two step, a little jig in my house. I was like, yeah, thank you, Gabe.

[Kenny]

Thank you. You can play that music.

[Jay Coles]

And Gabe, you can say you're welcome. You're welcome.

[Kenny]

Okay?

[Jay Coles]

No promises on me not going on vacation. Okay, Fair enough. All right, we'll see you, boys.

[Kenny]

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, folks. Thanks for listening to news for the from the Krabby Coffee Shop. We got another good one lined up for next week.

[Jay Coles]

We do. We're diving to uptown and where can they find us, Kenny? On Facebook. Where else can they. Where do they find us? I don't even know.

[Kenny]

YouTube, Facebook, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, garagelogic.com.

[Jay Coles]

okay. All over the place. All right, cool. All right. All right, boys. That was fine. That was a good show today. See you later. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.