(NewsNation) — Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara is making a strong, unambiguous pledge: “We pledge never to forget Jamal, our brother.”
O’Hara recounted to NewsNation the events of May 30 that cost officer Jamal Mitchell his life.
O’Hara says Mitchell was responding to a report of a shooting, and came upon two men lying in the street, believing them to be the shooting victims.
“As he was putting on medical gloves and asking the person if he was OK … he was very suddenly and callously assassinated,” said O’Hara. “He was shot and fell to the ground, incapacitated. The suspect continued to fire upon him.”
O’Hara singled out Mitchell, who joined the Minneapolis Police Department in Feb. 2023, as exactly the kind of officer his department has been seeking since the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Officer Derek Chauvin and the upheaval that followed.
“He chose Minneapolis. Jamal is from the East Coast like I am. (He) moved to Minnesota four years ago and became a police officer,” said O’Hara. “He chose to become a Minneapolis police officer post-2020, despite all the very broad criticism of this agency.”
The Chief noted that, in his first week on the job, Mitchell ran into a burning house and saved an elderly couple.
The Minneapolis Police Department on Saturday identified the suspected shooter as 35-year-old Mustafa Mohamed. He was shot and killed by another police officer, who was also wounded. A third man died in the shooting and four others were wounded.
“There’s absolutely nothing Officer Mitchell could have done differently in that situation,” said O’Hara. “He did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Mitchell, a father of four, will be honored “not just for how he gave his life but for how he lived his life,” he said.
“He was the type of person who loved being a Minneapolis cop. He loved his co-workers. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved his children. He is the very best of what we could possibly ask for in police officers today.”