MINNEAPOLIS— The family of a man shot during a traffic stop in Minneapolis last summer is responding Charges against the Minnesota State Trooper were dropped.
Members of Ricky Cobb II’s family will speak at a rally outside the Hennepin County Government Center on Monday at 3:30 p.m. CBS News Minnesota is carrying this live. You can watch in the live player above, via the CBS News app or on Pluto TV.
On Sunday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed a dismissal of charges against 27-year-old Ryan Londregan in connection with the shooting of 33-year-old Cobb due to “several new pieces of evidence that would make it impossible for the State to prove that Mr. Londregan’s actions were not an authorized use of force by a peace officer.
London was accused And pleaded not guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter.
The charges were officially dropped Monday morning, which was the case when Moriarty spoke at length about dismissing the charges.
Moriarty and the prosecution team met with a use-of-force expert and later concluded the state could no longer meet its burden of proof, her office said. Moriarty says she and others in her office met with Cobb’s family before publicly announcing the charges would be dropped.
The Cobb family’s legal team of Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels and F. Clayton Tyler released a statement Sunday saying they were partly “disappointed” but “not surprised” by the decision to drop the charges.
“Apparently to get away with murder all you have to do is bully the prosecutors enough and the charges will simply go away,” the team wrote.
At a news conference early Monday afternoon, Londregan’s attorney, Chris Madel, said the evidence the prosecutor cited was not new and the indictment should not have happened in the first place.
Details of the shooting
On the morning of July 31, 2023, two troopers pulled Cobb, who was black, because he did not have his taillights on. They soon discovered he was wanted by Ramsey County police for violating a no-contact order in a domestic case.
Body camera footage captured by the troops showed them Cobb leaving his vehicle. He refused and began to drive away when an officer tried to unfasten his seat belt. That’s when Londregan, who is White, fired two bullets into Cobb’s torso.
Cobb’s vehicle continued to move, causing two of the troopers to fall to the ground. The vehicle eventually came to a stop and Cobb was found dead inside.
A federal lawsuit filed by Cobb’s family alleges that Londregan and Brett Seide unreasonably seized Cobb by ordering him out of the car without explaining whether he was under arrest, and by reaching into the car and grabbing him in an attempt ‘ to remove him by force’. The soldiers also used “unnecessary, excessive and deadly force” against Cobb, the lawsuit said.
