Defense: Suspects' violent crime spree prompted Minneapolis police chase that ended with deadly crash

Two teenagers were on a violent crime spree last summer while fleeing in a stolen car when a Minneapolis police officer pursuing them hit an SUV with his squad and killed the driver, according to newly-filed court documents.

The disclosure came in defense filings made this week in Hennepin County District Court on behalf of Officer Brian Cummings in an attempt to have second-degree manslaughter and criminal vehicular homicide charges dismissed against him. Cummings was placed on leave after the July 6 high-speed collision at a north Minneapolis intersection that killed 40-year-old Leneal Frazier of St. Paul.

Cummings, 38, left the Minneapolis police in October, the day after the charges were filed. City officials Friday declined to say whether he resigned or was fired.

Defense attorney Thomas Plunkett argued in his dismissal motion that Cummings' pursuit of the two suspects was "consistent with [police] department policies" at the time and that his client "has been singled out for prosecution for a political purpose. ... The defense intends to offer credible evidence that [other officers] similarly situated were not prosecuted."

A hearing is scheduled before Judge Tamara Garcia on Thursday, when Plunkett's motion for dismissal will be taken up.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office issued a statement Friday saying it will file a written response to the defense's motions and release it to the public.

"Suffice to say for now that these motions are completely without any basis in the facts or in the law and thus will be vigorously opposed," the statement read. "Our office will not allow the personal nature of these motions to deflect attention away from the criminal behavior underlying this case: that the defendant was driving through a residential area after midnight at speeds exceeding 90 mph, which resulted in the tragic death of an innocent man."

Prosecutors say that Cummings was driving 90 miles per hour on residential streets when he ran a red light and entered the intersection of N. Lyndale and 41st avenues just as Frazier's Jeep was crossing it. Cummings struck the driver's side of the Jeep at about 78 mph, according to the charges.

The pursuit of the stolen vehicle covered 20 city blocks as it ran stop signs and red lights. The stolen vehicle was traveling about 100 mph when it ran a red light at the intersection and nearly struck Frazier's vehicle.

When Cummings was charged last fall, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman called his actions "egregious" and said the suspects' crimes involved neither violence nor guns and that the officer would have known that.

"There is no reasonable person, no reasonable cop that would drive 90 miles per hour in residential neighborhoods late at night," Freeman said at the time.

Plunkett, in his effort to have the charges dismissed, lays out a far more troubling and contradictory picture of the suspects, 18-year-old Dorian R. Flowers and 19-year-old James J. Jones-Drain. Charges against them detail a string of at least 15 robberies, some of them violent, that continued up to within hours of the fatal crash.

The defense filing includes a crime alert "for law enforcement only" from the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued on the same day as the crash that killed Frazier, explaining the circumstances of the collision and how the suspects being pursued "were involved in multiple armed robberies."

It went on to say the suspects were in a car that was taken in "a strong-arm carjacking." The alert warned any officer locating the vehicle to "USE CAUTION IF OCCUPIED."

The dismissal filing relates that Cummings can be heard on dispatch audio saying that he thought he was pursuing a car that was stolen in a "carjacking at gunpoint."

Felony charges from Freeman's office in connection with several of the robberies detail various degrees of physical violence, as the two suspects allegedly stole cash from one business after another, including three several hours before the 12:30 a.m. collision.

An employee at a Minneapolis CVS pharmacy was pushed during one robbery that night, and one of the teens allegedly "pushed the cashier over" while targeting a Subway restaurant. Earlier on July 5, another Subway in Minneapolis was robbed, according to a multi-agency alert from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office.

Two weeks before the crash, one of the suspects allegedly pushed a cashier at a White Castle restaurant in Minneapolis as cash was being grabbed from the register. The cashier was punched in the mouth, opening a small cut.

That same day in Robbinsdale, a Dollar Store clerk was pushed to the floor while the two teens allegedly jumped the counter and stole money from the cash register.

Plunkett claims in the dismissal filings that Freeman was motivated by politics and not justice when his office prosecuted Cummings, contending that the county attorney chose the wrong case to use as a platform to condemn police pursuit policies in Minnesota.

"The charges ... were based on improper political considerations, and as such violate Cummings' rights to due process and fundamental fairness," the defense attorney wrote. "When a prosecution is premised on bad faith and improper purpose, the courts must intervene to prevent an injustice."

Frazier was the uncle of Darnella Frazier, the young woman whose cellphone video of George Floyd's death in May 2020 helped convict fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder.