Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman says he was carjacked, but not hurt

A Minneapolis City Council member said he was carjacked on the city’s south side Monday night.

Jamal Osman said the carjacking occurred near Portland Avenue and Lake Street around 8 p.m.

“I’m home now in Phillips West with my family, and I want to assure neighbors that I’m okay,” Osman said. “This incident is another reminder of the work ahead to keep all of our communities safe.”

Osman represents Ward 6, of which Portland and Lake sits right on the border. He said police “responded quickly to the incident” and thanked both Chief Brian O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey for checking on him after the carjacking.

According to Osman, ths suspects are minors who carried out another carjacking earlier in the evening.

“My heart goes out to them,” Osman said of the other victims. “No one should have to experience this kind of trauma in our city.”

Voters first chose Osman to represent Ward 6 in a special election in 2020. He won reelection in 2021, 2023 and just last week.

According to city data, there have been 152 carjackings so far this year. Eighteen of those have occurred in Osman’s ward. Of the city’s 13 wards, only 5 (22), 8 (19) and 9 (34) have seen more.

Citywide, carjackings are down compared to last year at this time, along with nearly all violent crime.

Last year, O’Hara touted the work his department has been doing to reduce the number of carjackings.

“We initiated a robbery response protocol where we saturate areas as soon as we can once we noticed these problems . . . and then even when we do have robbery sprees, there’s fewer robberies and carjackings reported,” O’Hara said at the time. “We also now have juvenile investigators on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week . . . because there’s certain procedures and evidence collection issues that are different for juveniles. We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can at the time of the incident — whether it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, or 3 o’clock on a Monday afternoon — to ensure that we’re doing everything possible to build these cases as quickly as quickly as we can.”