Former police officer now leads
St. Paul Office of Neighborhood Safety

By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | October 2026

When students from Humboldt High School needed rides to Minneapolis to get special medication for fentanyl addiction, former school resource officer Toy Vixayvong personally went out of his way to take them there, and when that wasn’t enough, he began a program with the nonprofit Urban Village to provide more transportation. He also spearheaded a partnership between St. Paul Public Schools and Minnesota Trade Academy to offer 8-week paid summer internships for students to discover careers that don’t require a 2- or 4-year degree, such as plumbing, electric and carpentry.

“Kids were overdosing on fentanyl almost on a daily basis three years ago at Humboldt High School,” said Vixayvong. “I got really involved to find out what we can do, and we started working closely with the students and their families…. Urban Village does the complete wraparound with students, checking on them at school and making sure they pass their classes. It was a good partnership. We went from having calls almost on a daily basis for overdoses to now zero calls there for overdoses.”

Vixayvong, who immigrated to Minnesota from Laos at age six, is also a seasoned St. Paul Police officer of 25 years with experience in everything from narcotics to gangs and gun violence. His deep community connections and ability to pioneer ways to break through to people experiencing adversity is why St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her named him director of the St. Paul Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) this spring. He succeeds Cedrick Baker, who was promoted to assistant mayor for people and neighborhood vitality.

ONS operates programs that provide support services in the community. For example, Project PEACE helps youth who are at a high-risk of experiencing gun violence, and Familiar Faces and its Homeless Action Response Team regularly provides resources to unsheltered people.

Now, with a few months under his belt, Vixayvong is engrossed in finding ways to help the approximately 100-plus people who were displaced from the unsheltered encampment off Fish Hatchery Road near Pig’s Eye Park. The city formally closed the site on Aug. 5, citing unsafe living conditions. According to the mayor’s office, police responded to 539 calls there from July 2025-July 2026.

Despite the City of St. Paul giving Ramsey County an additional $1 million to expand its emergency shelter bed capacity, many of the homeless people from Pig’s Eye are not believed to have taken advantage of it. The next largest encampment in the city, located on a former auto salvage yard at Shepard Road and Randolph Avenue, has since swelled.

“During the time of the [Pig’s Eye encampment] closure, we were able to get seven people into housing,” Vixayvong said.

The number may be a low percentage, but the purpose of the department isn’t to force people to do anything. Even if it takes years, Vixayvong said they simply want to be there when a person is ready to accept help.

“Our Familiar Faces workers try every day to build relationships,” he said. “We have to keep doing the work to educate them that we’re here to help…. It’s been rewarding to see how dedicated our employees are and how they have the heart to really want to make a difference and help out the community.”

City hires new prosecutor
The City of St. Paul recently hired Adam Hinz as community prosecutor, a new position within the community justice unit of the city attorney’s office. He is also a senior attorney for the city, but the new role will put his focus on misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor offenses specific to downtown.

The new position is funded through the Downtown Improvement District, which was formed in 2023 and expanded in January 2025 to encompass all of downtown. The DID is funded by self-imposed fees from buildings located downtown, collected through property taxes, with the goal of providing supplemental support to city operations that maintain safety and cleanliness. Since the DID was formed, calls to St. Paul Police for quality-of-life crimes have fallen 40%. The DID also operates a Safety Communications Center and employs street ambassadors who clean litter and graffiti from streets and sidewalks, direct tourists, provide escorts, and notify police of suspicious behavior.

“The creation of the community prosecutor role reflects the kind of innovative, collaborative approach we need to strengthen public safety in downtown St. Paul,” said Mayor Kaohly Her in a statement. “By bringing focused prosecutorial resources together with law enforcement, city departments and community partners, we can respond more strategically to the issues that matter most to the people who live, work and spend time downtown.”