Phillip Murphy, Minneapolis citizen journalist who documented the North Side, has died at 61

“There are people who absolutely loathe me with every fiber of their being because they think I’m worse than the people who shoot up our neighborhoods,” Murphy told the Star Tribune in 2016. “Most of our community is apathetic, they. I just hope this problem will go away. They don’t want to talk.”

That never deterred his mission.

Murphy regularly peppered the police with questions at press conferences alongside mainstream media outlets, then hung around the scenes to watch detectives work. He held law enforcement to a high standard and expected them to act professionally on behalf of the victim’s families. Officers caught smiling or laughing at a crime scene, however briefly, are likely to be photographed and shamed on social media.

“Phil had a unique ability to irritate basically anyone he came in contact with,” said retired Chief Deputy Mike Kjos, who served two stints as inspector of the Fourth Precinct. “But once you got to know him, you realized this guy had a deep love for north Minneapolis. It was down to the bone.”

Random crime scene remediation has become a crusade over the years. If Murphy found blood or debris left at the scene from a car accident or a recent murder, Kjos was sure to get a call demanding that someone from town come back to clean it up. Murphy believed that being left behind was unthinkable – and would never be allowed to happen in other parts of the city.

“He had a good heart,” Kjos said, recalling how Murphy left a large framed picture of Sgt. John LaLuzerne, filmed at an overnight downtown crime scene in 2018, according to MPD lost department veteran to suicide.