Civil lawsuit brought by family of Ricky Cobb II against Minnesota state trooper dismissed

A civil lawsuit brought by the family of Ricky Cobb II against Minnesota State Patrol trooper Brett Seide was dismissed in federal court on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel concluded that Seide was entitled to qualified immunity against claims of unreasonable seizure and excessive force brought by Cobb’s family after Cobb was shot and killed following a traffic stop on the morning of July 31, 2023, in Minneapolis.

In her analysis of the case, Brasel relied on body camera footage to determine Seide was reasonable in his attempt to detain Cobb and that Seide did not use excessive force during the traffic stop, which ended with state trooper Ryan Londregan shooting and killing Cobb.

A similar civil lawsuit brought against Londregan was dismissed last year by Brasel. Last January, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Londregan with three felonies, including second-degree murder, before dropping the charges in June amid intense public scrutiny.

Attorney Bakari Sellers, who represents Cobb’s family, said Wednesday: “We are already in the midst of appeal and will let the process play out.”

Cobb’s family has also appealed the dismissal of the civil lawsuit brought against Londregan and that case is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Seide’s attorney, Janine Kimble, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit argued that Cobb’s civil rights had been violated in two ways: that Seide extended the traffic stop — which was initiated because Cobb was driving without taillights — for too long while investigating a violation of a protective order that had been filed against Cobb in Ramsey County, and that Seide used excessive force by trying to remove Cobb from his car, later using his squad car to stop Cobb’s vehicle on Interstate 94.

Brasel concluded that Seide behaved in a way that another police officer would have in a similar circumstance. That notion of qualified immunity is a necessary legal standard to establish a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit.

Brasel said the body camera footage showed Seide acted reasonably that night — including following a directive from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office to detain Cobb over violating the order for protection. She also concluded Seide and Londregan were reasonable in their attempts to try to get Cobb out of the car before Cobb put the car in drive, attempted to flee the scene and Londregan shot and killed him.

“Cobb ignored repeated requests for him to exit the car and give up the car keys,” Brasel wrote. “The video shows that when Seide told Cobb that he was under arrest, Cobb took steps that an officer would reasonably believe were an attempt to flee.”

The question of whether or not Cobb posed an immediate threat to Seide’s safety led Brasel to note that police officers often have to make instantaneous decisions about what level of force to use “in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving.”

She determined that Cobb’s actions, especially shifting the car into drive while the officers were trying to detain him, made it “objectively reasonable for Seide to view Cobb’s actions as an immediate threat to the safety of Londregan and the motorists on the highway.”