In 2022 Hennepin voters chose Dawanna Witt, a veteran of nearly 20 years in county law enforcement in Minnesota, to be their next sheriff. While the sheriff’s office used to focus on things like foreclosures, evictions, and detention, it now regularly supplements basic policing in Golden Valley and regularly assists Minneapolis cops as well. She arrived in an environment we all know much about: an officer roster down 20%; an epidemic of property crime and violence, much of it perpetrated by minors with guns; and a county electorate polarized on the value of policing. Witt notes that the pandemic isolated at-risk youth and changed behaviors. “Adults are failing kids,” she says; the county’s closure of most of its youth criminal justice facilities is part of that failure, she believes. Her priorities for her second year as sheriff: getting fentanyl off the streets and educating about its dangers; recruitment/hiring/retention of officers, especially those with investigative skills; and transparency to build trust in the community.

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