Supreme Court ends civil case over Ricky Cobb II shooting

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a civil-rights appeal brought by the family of Ricky Cobb II over his fatal 2023 shooting by Minnesota state troopers during a Twin Cities traffic stop, effectively ending the federal civil case.^[1]

In an order issued without comment, the court on Wednesday denied a petition for a writ of certiorari that sought to revive civil claims against Troopers Ryan Londregan and Brett Seide, leaving in place lower-court rulings that found the officers shielded from liability. The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association quickly praised the decision as vindication for Londregan and his legal team, while it closed off one of the last remaining legal avenues for Cobb's relatives in federal court.^[1]

In earlier stages of the case, two federal courts had dismissed the Cobb family's lawsuits after reviewing body-camera footage and applying the doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects government officials from civil damages unless they violate clearly established constitutional rights. Judges in those courts concluded that the video contradicted the plaintiffs' narrative of the shooting and showed Cobb putting his vehicle in drive and attempting to flee a July 2023 traffic stop on Interstate 94 when Londregan, who appeared to be partially inside and being dragged by the car, fired the fatal shots.^[1]

Separate from the now-closed civil case, the shooting sparked a volatile criminal prosecution of Londregan led by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who initially charged the trooper with murder and manslaughter before dropping the case this year after reviewing new defense evidence and expert material. Gov. Tim Walz later acknowledged that he was prepared to remove the prosecution from Moriarty's office if she refused to dismiss it, an extraordinary signal of tension between the governor and the county's elected prosecutor over how aggressively to pursue charges against law enforcement officers.^[1]

With the Supreme Court's refusal to intervene, the legal outcome now stands in sharp contrast to how many Minnesotans first encountered the case, in a media and political environment still shaped by high-profile killings of Black men by police. Early coverage of the Cobb shooting echoed a broader pattern in which police use of force against Black drivers is often framed primarily as evidence of racial bias, while complex legal standards like qualified immunity and close video review by courts receive less sustained attention. At the same time, civil-rights litigation and police-reform debates that grew out of earlier cases have helped push more prosecutions of officers into the criminal courts, making clashes like the one between Moriarty and Walz over Londregan's charges more common and more politically charged.

1. FOX 9