The family of Ricky Cobb II filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on Wednesday against two Minnesota State Patrol troopers who stopped and killed Cobb, a 33-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop on a Minneapolis interstate last July. “Ricky Cobb was a productive citizen of this community, and we will not let you vilify him,” family attorney Bakari Sellers said at a news conference. “We will not let you punish him in his death. We want him to be allowed to rest in peace. And today is another step in the journey of bringing those officers who caused his death to justice.”
The lawsuit names Troopers Ryan Londregan, who shot Ricky Cobb II, and Brett Seide, who made the initial stop of Cobb, whose lights were out on his car. Londregan, a white officer, is facing murder charges in Minneapolis, where the murder of George Floyd by police nearly four years ago sparked global protests demanding racial justice. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a former chief public defender for the county, who was elected as its top prosecutor in 2022 on a platform of police accountability in the wake of Floyd’s murder, has faced unprecedented pushback from politicians and law enforcement for charging Londregan.