Comments Regarding Dismissal of Charges Against Trooper Ryan Londregan

TO:    Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarity

FR:    Jeff Potts, Executive Director, Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association

CC:    Governor Timothy Walz, Governor of the State of Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Attorney General of the State of Minnesota, Commissioner Bob Jacobson, Commissioner of Public Safety

Dear Hennepin County Attorney Moriarty,

As the organization representing the 300+ police chiefs and over 150 Command staff personnel from law enforcement agencies from all over the state, we have serious concerns about comments you made during your recent news conference at which you attempted to explain your decision to dismiss all charges against State Patrol Trooper Ryan Londregan.

We join many other leaders, lawyers, and experts who recognized that Trooper Londregan should never have been charged in the first place. Your website says your mission is to “prosecute crimes with fairness and integrity.” It is our opinion that you have failed at both in this matter, your bizarre attacks on all law enforcement officers were beyond the pale.

Your statements were reckless, irresponsible and not based in reality. For example:

• You claim "nothing has changed since George Floyd." That would come as a surprise to legislators who passed more than 25 police reforms in the months and years following his death. Many of those reforms were recommended by Minnesota Working Group on Police Involved Deadly Force Encounters chaired by Attorney General Keith Ellison and former Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington. The Minnesota Police Accountability Act, signed into law by Governor Tim Walz in 2020, included changes to the threshold for police use of deadly force and required all law enforcement agencies to update their written policies to include a duty to Intervene in excessive force situations as well as several other reforms including law changes on traffic stops as recently as last month.
  
  
• We’re dumbfounded by your assertion that "system barriers" are the reason why you ultimately chose not to prosecute this case. The “system” had nothing to do with the analysis of your own use-of-force experts or the conclusion of your group of special prosecutors that you could not prevail at trial and the charges were not warranted. Try as you might, you can’t make the facts fit your desire to vilify all police officers.
  
  
• Your insinuations that all use-of-force cases are the same and every incident has racial overtones is simply not true. Every case is different and comes with unique circumstances. While you have never served as a police officer, please know that the decision to use deadly force has never been made lightly, even more so following the murder of George Floyd and subsequent changes in the law, regardless of the officer’s race or ethnicity.
  
  
• You referred to "summary execution" as a result of Ricky Cobb choosing to not comply with a lawful order of a police officer. That inflammatory language is absurd and very inaccurate. Mr. Cobb, who was wanted for violating a domestic abuse order for protection, was attempting to get away, dragging two troopers in the process.

In your news conference you said, "I mean, I am capable of doing my job. I am doing it here, right? It will probably have some political consequences for me, but as I've always said, the people didn't elect me to make political decisions. They elected me to make courageous ethical decisions."

We agree that politics shouldn’t be your guide when lives and reputations are at stake; following the rule of law should be. We sincerely hope that you will make sound, ethical decisions for everyone, including the men and women who are protecting and serving our communities in an extremely difficult environment. Your apparent anti-law-enforcement comments and actions are detrimental to public safety and for everyone.