Hennepin County Attorney Maria Moriarty Said she will dismiss murder and manslaughter charges against State Trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of motorist Ricky Cobb II last summer.
Moriarty told the Star Tribune that her unexpected decision comes in response to a prosecution expert’s new analysis of a scene video, combined with recent statements from Londregan’s attorney. During a hearing in April, defense attorney Chris Madel told the court that the 27-year-old trooper feared for his partner’s life because he believed the driver, Ricky Cobb III, was reaching for a gun. Moriarty said Londregan’s team had never made this legal claim before. Prosecutors and the law enforcement expert reviewed the footage and found that while Londregan’s partner was clinging to the passenger door, Cobb moved his hand up and “you can’t see very clearly” what he’s doing.
The expert said the video reveals “horrible, horrible, horrible” tactics displayed by the troopers, but it shows that Londregan used lawful force at the time because he “could have shot to cause great bodily harm or death” partner,” Moriarty said. .
“In theory, we could prosecute this and just let the jury decide,” she said. “Ethically, however, we cannot do that because we do not believe at this time that we can refute that affirmative defense.”
“This is not a situation where we’re going to retreat,” Moriarty continued. “It is a situation where we recognize that given all the barriers that have been put up in these types of cases and the new information that has emerged, we simply cannot ethically proceed any further.”
Moriarty said she plans to file the motion to dismiss Monday morning.
The case was also marked by a shake-up in the prosecution after Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Joshua Larson removed himself from the case and was replaced by outside counsel from Steptoe LLP, a Washington DC-based international law firm with a contract initially worth $1 million. dollars included. billing limit for their services. In a report released Sunday, the special counsel recommended dismissing the charges, and Moriarty said she agreed with that recommendation.
The nine-page report says that while the troopers’ tactics were flawed in their failure to de-escalate during the traffic stop, they were “not demonstrably inconsistent with their training.”
“Suffice it to say, the state’s ability to refute Londregan’s justification for his use of deadly force has diminished significantly in the months since he was indicted. As a result, the allegations can no longer be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The decision marks an unceremonious conclusion to a legal battle that has galvanized Minnesotans and tapped into America’s rabid politics surrounding police use of force. Londregan has maintained his innocence since charges were filed in January. His fellow troopers and other law enforcement supporters arrived by the busload and packed the courthouse for several court hearings, wearing T-shirts and carrying signs calling for charges to be dropped and Moriarty recalled. Several briefly clashed with a smaller but vocal contingent demanding justice for the Cobb before an April hearing.
Moriarty said she has been at the center of criticism since she announced the allegations, when Madel released a video calling her “out of control.”
“Open season on law enforcement must end,” Madel said at the time. “And it will end with this case.”
Moriarty, a former public defender, ran for the job of Hennepin County’s top prosecutor after the killing of George Floyd, amid a campaign that included holding police officers accountable when they break the law. In a wide-ranging interview on Sunday, she said this case was never political for her, and blasted Londregan’s defense team, police organizations and politicians who made comments she said were “really inappropriate and really disrespectful to the family towards Ricky Cobb.”
This includes Governor Tim Walz, who publicly expressed concerns about the handling of the case shortly after the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association sent his office a letter asking Walz to direct the attorney general’s office to take over the prosecution.
“The governor never contacted me,” she said. “I don’t recall him ever intervening in a case against anyone on behalf of the person being charged.”
When asked if she believed Walz was preparing to take over the case from her office, Moriarty said it is possible. “Who knows, right? And that would be tragic,” she said. “I mean, I’m able to do my job. I’ll do it here, right? It will probably have some political consequences for me, but as I have always said, the people did not elect me to make political decisions. They elected me to make courageous ethical decisions.”
The charges against Londregan stemmed from a traffic stop on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis last July, when other troopers stopped Cobb for driving without taillights, but soon learned he was wanted for violating a domestic restraining order. Cobb, 33, did not comply with orders to get out of his vehicle and instead switched to driving, causing the car to lurch forward while Londregan and a colleague were partially inside and tried to remove it. Londregan fired his service weapon, striking Cobb twice.
Moriarty said she charged Londregan based on the evidence available at the time, and that the judge confirmed there was probable cause to proceed with the case. Her office offered several times for the defense to come in and talk about what Londregan will say in court, she said, but he declined and other witnesses did not cooperate with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s investigation. She said the prosecutor was caught off guard when Madel made comments in court about fearing Cobb reaching for a gun.
Cobb did have a gun in the vehicle, and Moriarty said there is still no evidence he intended to take it, but the statements made prosecutors reconsider the evidence through a new lens.
“They could have told us that at any time before charging us,” she said. “And that is information that we would have considered — and obviously considered.”
