Family of Ricky Cobb II grateful for murder charge against state trooper
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The family of Ricky Cobb II is grateful that the Minnesota state trooper who fatally shot Cobb is being charged with murder.
During a press conference Thursday, the family and an attorney representing them thanked Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty for bringing three charges against trooper Ryan Londregan Wednesday.
The trooper is accused of fatally shooting 33-year-old Cobb during a stop on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis in late July of last year. Moriarty said it was not necessary for Londregan to use deadly force during the stop.
"Hopefully my son will get some rest peacefully behind this,” said Cobb’s father, Ricky Cobb Sr. “Because right now the family ain’t getting rest, not peaceful. We closing our eyes but it's not peaceful."
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An attorney for the family praised Moriarty’s office.
"We want to thank this district attorney’s office for bravery and courage,” said Harry Daniels, a civil rights attorney from Atlanta. “In spite of the naysayers and the polarizing comments, because it shouldn’t matter if you wear a badge, shield, a star. This is not a black and white thing, no matter who wants to make it a black and white thing. This is not a law enforcement versus citizen thing. This is a right versus wrong."
Rashad Cobb held a sign of Ricky, his twin brother.
“It’s hard every day to wake up and look myself in the face,” he said. “But I have to because I gotta look my people in the face. We want equality. We want justice. We're not asking for the world, we're just asking for what’s righteously ours.”
Londregan’s attorney on Wednesday rebuked Moriarty’s decision to charge, saying the county attorney is “literally out of control.” Londregan is due to make his first court appearance on Monday afternoon.
Londregan is charged with second-degree unintentional murder, first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter. He was one of three troopers on the scene along I-94 at about 2 a.m. on July 31, 2023.
He’d pulled up to assist other troopers and then to help take Cobb into custody after they learned Cobb was wanted on “probable cause arrest for a felony order-for-protection violation” in Ramsey County, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Body camera video provided by the state Department of Public Safety shows Cobb starting to drive away as the troopers try to pull him out of the car. Londregan, the trooper on the passenger side, can be seen on the video firing several shots into the car before falling to the ground as Cobb drives away.
The car then travels about a quarter mile down the interstate and stops against a highway divider. Cobb died at the scene. The BCA said a handgun and two cartridges were found behind the center console of Cobb’s car but that none of the released videos shows him holding the gun.
Cobb’s mother, Nyra Fields-Miller described her son as “strong willed, strong minded and full of the Lord. Ricky was just really a wonderful young man, and definitely my child.”
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