The grandmother of Monica Holley, a 14-year-old fatally shot in St. Paul, was surprised to see St. Paul’s mayor and police chief at the girl’s wake last month.

“It made me feel like it was important to them to recognize the loss and to try to support the family,” Gail Wright said recently.

The shooting of Monica, in which three other teens were injured, was one of the most challenging times of Axel Henry’s first year as police chief.

Monica Joy Holley (Courtesy of the family)

Homicides have been higher than normal for St. Paul in recent years and the trend has continued this year, though some gun violence — nonfatal shootings and reports of shots fired — is less pervasive.

Henry, who rose through the St. Paul Police Department’s ranks and became police chief on Nov. 16, 2022, said last year that his top priorities were addressing gun violence, recruiting and retaining officers, and “expanding from community engagement to real community connections” — and those haven’t changed a year into the job.

Here’s a look at how St. Paul’s top cop is working on those three priorities:

Gun violence and homicides

Henry, who most recently was in charge of the police department’s narcotics and human trafficking unit, became chief at a time of continued gun violence.

Homicides started climbing in St. Paul in 2019. In the preceding two decades, the city averaged 16 homicides a year.

Then, there were 30 homicides in 2019 and a record-setting 38 murders in 2021. Though 40 people were killed last year, 34 were classified as murders investigated by St. Paul police (another three in St. Paul were handled by Metro Transit police and the other cases were found to be potential instances of self-defense).

There have been 30 homicides in St. Paul this year, including cases that have received much public attention — the shootings of Holley in October and hockey coach and dad Michael Brasel in front of his home in May; a shooting after a funeral gathering for an 80-year-old that killed two men and injured three other people in February; the stabbing of 15-year-old Devin Denelle Edward Scott in a hallway of Harding High School; and the killing of Manijeh “Mani” Starren, who was reported missing by her family and whose remains were found in a storage facility.

Charges have been filed in each of those cases except Holley’s homicide, which police say they continue to investigate.

St. Paul police investigators continue to have a higher-than-average clearance rate for homicides — it’s consistently in the 88 percent to 92 percent range — and Henry said that’s because every victim is high-profile to them: “We always remember that every murder we ever have is very important and it’s a tragedy that we have to put our best efforts towards.”

But when it comes to nonfatal shootings, St. Paul’s solve rate is about 35 percent, while the national average is below 30 percent, Henry told the city council in September. It’s often difficult to get cooperation from surviving victims and the department hasn’t “always had the ability or resources to investigate those cases with the same vigor that homicide cases get,” Henry said in an interview.

That’s why the police department is gearing up to use state funding, earmarked for public safety, to shift investigators from various units to work on nonfatal shootings, with the aim of solving more of them, Henry said.

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At the same time, Henry said the city’s continued approach of violence prevention is essential: “I will take a ‘never happened’ over a ‘we gotcha,’ so I’d much rather prevent a shooting or a murder than catch the person who did it.”

St. Paul’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, which Mayor Melvin Carter launched in 2022 with the goal of using community-driven approaches to preventing problems before they happen, started Project PEACE in the summer of 2022. The police department’s role is Operation ASPIRE, which has officers working on identifying who’s involved in gun violence. They’re arresting the people most seriously involved and referring young people on the brink of trouble to Project PEACE for services that could include job training, cognitive behavioral therapy and life coaching, Henry has said.

Nonfatal shootings in St. Paul are down nearly 40 percent year-over-year (108 as of Nov. 13 compared with 179 during the same time last year) and reports of shots fired have declined 38 percent (1,303 this year vs. 2,104 during the same period last year).

Recruiting and retaining officers

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, left, shares a story with Nolan Puleo who is with the department’s Law Enforcement Career Path Academy (LECPA) at the Richard H. Rowan Public Safety Training Center in St. Paul on Wednesday, Nov., 8, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The department is not staffed to full capacity — with an authorized strength of 619 officers, they’re currently at 562 officers; 20 are going through the police department’s academy now and scheduled to graduate and begin field training on patrol in February.

With declining number of applicants to law enforcement around the country and officers hired in the 1990s getting to retirement age, filling open spots is something they’re struggling with. That’s why Henry assigned a sergeant to work full-time on recruitment.

A motto of Henry’s, “service with purpose,” has been his guiding principle for recruitment, retention and for the community.

“For a long time, folks that work in our line of work have been hearing a narrative about how unwanted they are, how unappreciated they are, and so I spend a lot of my time reminding folks — and I think that’s one of the most important things I do in this job — is to remind people how important what they do is and how much it matters.”

Henry’s made it his mission to get out when he can to roll calls, the before-shift briefings that patrol officers attend. Because of Henry’s time earlier in his career as a patrol officer and patrol supervisor, “he took the job with probably more credibility than most police chiefs,” said Mark Ross, St. Paul Police Federation president, of how officers regard him.

Carter, who appointed Henry after a community-based examining committee narrowed the list to five finalists for the mayor to interview, said recently that Henry is not the type of leader who “puts himself on an island and tries to figure it all out himself.”

“He’s the leader who says, ‘How do we bring in our partners?’ ” Carter said of Henry’s work with other city departments, agencies and community members.

Community relations

Henry was tested early in his term when a sergeant fatally shot a 24-year-old man in December. A Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation showed Howard Peter Holliday Johnson had shot at the sergeant and another officer. Prosecutorial review found the sergeant was justified under Minnesota law and he was not charged.

After Johnson died, calling his family was “one of the things that they don’t ever prepare you for,” Henry said. He stared at his phone, trying to decide what to say. He wasn’t calling to notify them of Johnson’s death, but he said he told them, “I’m very sorry that this happened,” gave them his phone number, and told them they wouldn’t release public information — particularly body-camera footage — without first talking to them and showing them the video.

Henry has a community advisory council that meets every other month. The meetings are led by Deputy Chief Pamela Barragan and Henry attends as his schedule allows.

Getting input from community leaders is a tradition that started during William Finney’s term as police chief, which ran from 1992 to 2004, and continued through the most recent past St. Paul chief, Todd Axtell. Previous chiefs led the meetings themselves, which Tyrone Terrill, president of the African-American Leadership Council, said was important to him. Henry not doing so has been “somewhat troubling to us,” Terrill said.

Henry said he wanted Barragan to lead the meetings because that’s the “design of the leadership culture” he’s instilling, of having deputy chiefs and the assistant chief being integral parts of the department.

“I think people like it when they can say, ‘I have the chief’s phone number, but I want” community leaders “to have 10 people’s phone numbers” at the police department “and be very comfortable” reaching out to any of them, Henry said.

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, left, takes a selfie with Alan Dereje a student at Metro State University who graduated from departments Citizen Academy at the Richard H. Rowan Public Safety Training Center in St. Paul on Wednesday, Nov., 8, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Beyond that, Henry is encouraging officers to to make “real connections” with people they meet. That’s included an officer who met a high school student who was struggling with housing, helped her find a permanent place to stay and became a mentor to her, Henry said. Officers have also connected high school students to people who work in trade industries, so they can learn skills for future careers.

Also this year, the police department sought public comment about using drones, which is required by state law. The city council urged St. Paul police to seek more input. The department has rolled out drones, using them to search for missing people and for suspects.

The Rev. Richard Pittman Sr., St. Paul NAACP president, said Henry regularly meets with the NAACP as part of an agreement the organization has had with the police department for more than 20 years.

“He’s very straightforward and honest, and he’s sincere with the work that he’s trying to do,” said Pittman of getting to know Henry better over the last year.

In his personal life, Henry just became a first-time grandfather. During a recent interview with the Pioneer Press, he was waiting for the call — prepared to leave and head to the hospital — but the baby girl was born the next day.

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