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The Hennepin County Attorney's Office on Sunday dismissed
charges of unintentional murder and manslaughter against State
Trooper Ryan Londregan in the 2023 shooting death of Ricky Cobb
II, citing Londregan's intention to testify that he acted in
self-defense.
Prosecutors said dropping charges did not exonerate Londregan,
but they no longer believed they could meet their burden of
proof at trial given his expected testimony.
"While we are disappointed, we are not surprised because, like
many, we have come to expect the absence of justice and
accountability when Black lives are lost in this country,"
attorneys representing the Cobb family said in a statement.
"Instead of prosecuting him for murder, the County Attorney's
Office has bowed to political pressure to drop the charges,"
attorneys Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels and F. Clayton Tyler
said without elaborating on how the office may have been
pressured.
Troopers stopped Cobb on July 31, 2023, for driving at night
without headlights. The troopers told Cobb, 33, he was wanted
for an offense in another county and that they planned to arrest
him, according to the complaint filed against Londregan.
Londregan shot Cobb twice after Cobb put the car in gear and
took his foot off the brake as another trooper reached inside
the vehicle, trying to unbuckle his seatbelt, the complaint
said.
Cobb's killing took place in Minneapolis, the same city where
George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in 2020. The Floyd
killing set off racial justice protests around the world,
casting a spotlight on police killings of Black people.
The Minneapolis area also experienced police killings of Black
men in 2016 and 2021.
In a press conference on Monday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary
Moriarty said the decision to drop charges came after
Londregan's defense team told the court in April the trooper
planned to tell the jury he shot Cobb during a traffic stop
because he thought Cobb reached for his service pistol, putting
a fellow officer in imminent danger.
"We do not believe we would have even made it to a jury,"
Moriarty said.
Londregan's attorney, Christopher Madel, responded to the
dropping of charges on Sunday by saying in an email, "It's about
goddamned time."
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Rod Nickel
and Josie Kao)
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