Amy Klobuchar ran the biggest prosecutor’s office in Minnesota for eight years as Hennepin County Attorney, where she made combating violent crime a top priority while strengthening the office’s focus on fraud, financial crimes, and corruption. She knows firsthand the vital role law enforcement and public safety officers play in keeping Minnesotans safe – and the importance of giving them the resources, training, and support they need to do their jobs.
In the U.S. Senate, Klobuchar has continued to make public safety a top priority, working across party lines to pass legislation to increase support for local law enforcement and combat fraud, human trafficking, and the fentanyl epidemic. She has led efforts to reauthorize the COPS Hiring Program, which has brought in over $35 million to Minnesota and helped state and local law enforcement hire more than 140,000 police officers nationwide, and has secured nearly $50 million in funding for law enforcement in Minnesota in just the last four years. Klobuchar has supported efforts to prevent violent extremism at home, including by strengthening partnerships between law enforcement and local communities to disrupt terrorist recruitment, and between federal, state, and local law enforcement to investigate and stop acts of terrorism. She worked to successfully pass the bipartisan STOP School Violence Act with Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) to invest in school security infrastructure, evidence-based violence prevention training, and anonymous threat-reporting systems to stop violence before it happens. Klobuchar has secured multiple grants for the security of religious institutions, protecting churches, synagogues, and mosques across the state, including most recently $2.6 million for Annunciation Catholic School. She has also taken action to stop drug smuggling, leading the Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, which was signed into law to prevent fentanyl shipments from being smuggled into the U.S. through the mail, and successfully worked to pass laws to declare international fentanyl trafficking a national emergency and sanction transnational criminal organizations. And Klobuchar worked to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun violence prevention law in nearly 30 years, including provisions based on a bill she led to prevent abusive dating partners convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a firearm.
Klobuchar has received national awards for her work on behalf of law enforcement, including the Major County Sheriffs of America’s Legislator of the Year award with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–LA) in 2026, the Fraternal Order of Police National President’s Advocacy Award in 2025, and the National Association of Police Organizations’ Legislative Award for Outstanding Support for America’s Law Enforcement in 2024. As Hennepin County Attorney, her office was one of only nine jurisdictions nationwide to be recognized as a community prosecution leadership site by President Bush’s Department of Justice, and she was honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for successfully advocating for passage of Minnesota’s first felony DWI law.
Minnesotans should feel safe in their homes, schools, workplaces, and places of worship. Law enforcement should have the support they need to keep Minnesotans safe and put criminals behind bars, and our criminal justice system must be focused on public safety and based on justice. As she announced alongside law enforcement leaders in White Bear Lake, as Governor, Klobuchar will:
- Take on organized crime and gang violence. Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers must work together to address violent crime and gun violence. Klobuchar will establish a Regional Gang Violence Task Force – led by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) in coordination with law enforcement from Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, and Washington counties as well as Minneapolis, St. Paul, Metro Transit, and college and university police departments – which will target gangs and organized criminals committing violent crime, with clear oversight and accountability. She will also build up programs like the Violent Crime Enforcement Teams (VCETs), provide additional resources for investigations, operations, and prosecutions, and focus state resources on solving crimes across the state in order to hold criminals accountable.
- Assist local police departments to hire and retain more officers. Klobuchar knows that too many agencies are short on law enforcement personnel. As Governor, she will assist local police departments to put more cops on the street by establishing state grants for cities and counties to hire and retain more police officers – and by waiving initial application fees, expanding alternative pathways, and streamlining credentialing so future law enforcement personnel from other fields can transition into public safety careers. She will ensure officers receive the pay and benefits that reflect the difficulties of their jobs.
- Provide Minnesota state and local law enforcement with the resources they need to do their jobs through state, federal, and other funding sources. Klobuchar has long championed the needs of Minnesota’s law enforcement as Hennepin County Attorney and U.S. Senator. As Governor, she will provide law enforcement agencies with the equipment, technology, and training they need to keep communities safe, including for counterterrorism operations, and she will increase the capacity of the BCA for forensic laboratories, investigators, crime-gun intelligence, and regional investigative capacity, including cyber.
- Strengthen community partnerships to prevent threats — including terrorism — before they materialize. Threats against schools, places of worship, public servants, and community institutions are rising, as Minnesota tragically experienced with the shootings at Annunciation Catholic Church. Klobuchar will build on statewide threat-assessment capacity at the BCA, working with schools, local police, election officials, and community organizations to investigate credible threats quickly and stop violence before it happens. She will strengthen partnerships between law enforcement and the communities they serve through community policing and improved training. Klobuchar will expand security resources for houses of worship and nonprofit organizations facing threats and strengthen efforts to investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
- Root out fraud and hold fraudsters and scammers accountable. Klobuchar will root out fraud with a top-to-bottom audit of state government, stop fraud before it starts by vetting grants and contracts before state funds are awarded, ensure in-person inspections and unannounced visits, and strengthen criminal penalties for stealing from taxpayers. Read Klobuchar’s full plan to take on fraud here: AmyKlobuchar.com/accountable. Building on her work in the Senate to protect victims of scams and fight scams targeting seniors, Klobuchar will expand the cybercrime capabilities at the BCA by hiring more digital forensic experts who can crack phones and trace stolen money. She will also strengthen coordination among law enforcement, financial institutions, and aging-services providers to identify scams.
- Ensure sentencing reflects the severity of a crime. Klobuchar believes there must be consequences for people who commit crimes, and she will work with county attorneys and law enforcement so that penalties match the seriousness of the offense.
- Protect critical infrastructure and be ready when emergencies hit. Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are growing – in recent years, cyberattacks on Minnesota’s cities, water systems, schools, and hospitals have shut down services and exposed people’s private data. Klobuchar will create a statewide cyber response team that will bring together the BCA, state and local emergency management officials, and the growing and necessary cyber expertise of the Minnesota National Guard to coordinate with federal and private sector cybersecurity experts.
- Protect people from online exploitation and digital threats. Building on her leadership in the U.S. Senate to make the digital world safer, including her work with Senator Ted Cruz (R–TX) to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act that criminalized the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery and required platforms to take them down, Klobuchar will ensure Minnesota law enforcement has the dedicated resources to combat and avert threats people face online. As part of that work, she will expand the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and make social media platforms actively cooperate with state law enforcement to identify and remove predators and illicit drug dealers targeting minors.
- Fight drug crimes. Too many people are caught in a vicious cycle of addiction, criminal activity, incarceration, and re-entry. Building on her leadership in the Senate, Klobuchar will strengthen coordination among state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies to take on drug-trafficking networks and hold gang members and those profiting from addiction accountable. She will target the networks moving fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other dangerous synthetic drugs through Minnesota, and improve technology and investigative resources for identifying and intercepting illicit narcotics, including dangerous drugs sold through social media and other online platforms.
- Address addiction. Building on her work as County Attorney and in the U.S. Senate, Klobuchar will expand access to evidence-based drug and alcohol treatment and drug courts, which are among the most effective tools for reducing recidivism; support medication-assisted treatment in jails and prisons; and build a co-responder program and other evidence-based approaches that save lives and make communities safer.
- Expand mental health access. Klobuchar will work to build the mental health workforce, including dedicated mental health counselors and social workers, and will work to add psychiatric bed capacity, with a specific focus on kids, building on the 2025 bonding investment. She will work to restore and expand the school-linked mental health grants so kids and their parents can get help in school. Klobuchar will also direct the Commerce Department to enforce equal coverage for mental and physical health, so insurance covers mental health and addiction care like the health care it is, and will work to fully fund Minnesota’s mobile crisis response so that in a mental health emergency, help comes where it is needed.
- Support survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Klobuchar will work with counties to establish regional Family Justice Centers, building on Hennepin County’s Domestic Abuse Service Center, which Klobuchar strengthened as County Attorney and has supported as Senator. These centers are places where survivors of domestic and sexual violence can get legal help, counseling, housing support, and law enforcement in one place. She will make sure sexual assault kits are tested quickly, clear the remaining backlog, and expand access to forensic exams and victim advocates, with the assistance of the BCA where necessary.
- Prevent gun violence. Klobuchar will prioritize keeping guns away from people who should not have them while also protecting due process and the rights of the many law-abiding gun owners in Minnesota. She will sign the gun safety package that passed the Minnesota Senate to strengthen safe storage standards, ban assault weapons, and improve school security.
