Family of Ricky Cobb II responds after charges dropped for trooper Ryan Londregan
MINNEAPOLIS — The family of a man shot and killed during a traffic stop in Minneapolis last summer is responding after charges were dropped against the Minnesota state trooper.
Members of Ricky Cobb II's family spoke during a rally outside the Hennepin County Government Center Monday afternoon, saying they felt they were lied to.
"I have been really wrecked about this. They need to take accountability and stand. Be a man...and I'm going to be a woman and do what I've gotta do and make this right," Nyra Fields-Miller, Cobb's mother, said.
Fields-Miller said she thought there would be accountability.
"This is bull in so many ways and I'm hurt," she said Monday.
On Sunday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed a notice of dismissal of charges against 27-year-old Ryan Londregan in the shooting death 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."
Londregan was charged with and pleaded not guilty to second-degree unintentional murder, first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter.
The charges were officially dropped on Monday morninig, which was also when Moriarty spoke at length on the dismissal of charges.
Moriarty and the prosecution team met with a use of force expert and later determined the state could no longer meet its burden of proof, her office says. 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, comprised of Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels and F. Clayton Tyler, released a statement on Sunday saying in part they were "disappointed" but "not surprised" by the move to drop charges.
"Apparently, all you have to do to get away with murder is to bully the prosecutors enough and the charges will just go away," the team wrote.
In a press conference early Monday afternoon, Londregan's defense attorney Chris Madel said the evidence the prosecution cited wasn't new and charges shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Cobb's family wants the governor to reassign the case to the attorney general.
"[Prosecutors] smiled in my face and had a dagger in my back all along," Fields-Miller said. "I am so upset, disappointed and mad. My heart breaks every day."
Details of the shooting
On the morning of July 31, 2023, two troopers pulled Cobb, who was Black, over for not having his taillights on. They soon discovered he was wanted by Ramsey County law enforcement for violating a no-contact order in a domestic case.
Body camera footage captured by the troopers showed them demanding Cobb exit his vehicle. He refused and began driving away when a trooper tried to unbuckle his seat belt. That's when Londregan, who is White, fired two rounds 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 claims Londregan and Brett Seide unreasonably seized Cobb by ordering him out of the car without explaining if he was under arrest, and by reaching into the car and grabbing him in an attempt to "forcibly remove him." The troopers also used "unnecessary, excessive, and deadly force" on Cobb, the lawsuit says.