Minneapolis journalist Phillip Murphy, who documented the North Side, dies at 61

“There are people who hate me with every fiber of their being, because they think I’m worse than the people who are shooting up our neighborhoods,” Murphy told the Star Tribune in 2016. I just hope this problem goes away. They don’t want to talk.”

This never deterred his mission.

Murphy regularly peppered police with questions at press conferences as well as mainstream media outlets, then hovered around scenes to watch detectives work. He held law enforcement to a high standard and expected them to act professionally on behalf of victim families. Police officers caught smiling or laughing at a crime scene, no matter how brief, are likely to be photographed and shamed on social media.

“Phil had a unique ability to make everyone he came into contact with uncomfortable,” said retired Deputy Chief Mike Kjos, who served as a two-time investigator for the Fourth Precinct. “But once you got to know him, you realized this man had a deep love for North Minneapolis. “It was like that, right down to his bones.”

Haphazard crime scene recovery efforts turned into a crusade over the years. If Murphy found out there was blood or debris left in the area from a car accident or a recent murder, he was sure Kjos would get a call from the city demanding that someone return to clean it up. Murphy believed it was unreasonable to leave it behind and that it would never be allowed in other parts of the city.

“He had a good heart,” Kjos said, remembering how Murphy left a large framed picture of Sgt. John LaLuzerne taken at the scene overnight downtown in 2018 after MPD. I lost a department veteran to suicide.