Minnesota police association to Walz: Remove Mary Moriarty from all use-of-force cases

Minnesota’s largest police officers’ association has asked Gov. Tim Walz to remove Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty from prosecuting any use-of-force cases involving police officers in her jurisdiction, according to documents obtained by the Star Tribune.

Imran S. Ali, general counsel for the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA), wrote in a letter to Walz dated July 31 that Moriarty has demonstrated “a clear bias against law enforcement and a lack of impartiality in her decision-making processes.”

The letter focuses on Moriarty’s decision to charge Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan with murder in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II. Moriarty dropped those charges in June in the midst of intense political attention, citing a new prosecution expert’s analysis of video from the scene and statements by Londregan’s defense attorney. Walz later said he’d planned to remove Moriarty from the case.

Ali’s letter says a large number of law enforcement officers who work in Hennepin County “have reached out to me and are troubled and fearful of this county attorney handling any use of force matters.” The letter requests that Walz remove “all past, present, and future use of force cases involving police officers” from Moriarty.

Moriarty and the MPPOA declined comment.

The letter is part of a larger messaging strategy by Minnesota law enforcement agencies regarding Moriarty, a former public defender who ran on a reform campaign that included a promise to hold police accountable.

The Hennepin County Chiefs of Police Association, another professional association for law enforcement, sent the letter to its members this week with an email saying it had hired public relations firm K2 & Co. to “help push back against criticisms” from Moriarty’s office. The public relations firm will help the chiefs association “develop standardized talking points and messages around what we do as law enforcement” and combat “negative narratives,” New Hope Police Chief Tim Hoyt wrote in emails.

That firm is led by Kirsten Kukowski and Kristen Sheehan. Kukowski is a former Republic National Committee regional press secretary in the Midwest and Great Lakes region and was the communications director for former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Hoyt also co-authored an op/ed, published in the Star Tribune this week, stating the importance of training and vetting law enforcement after the killing of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman killed by law enforcement in Sangamon County, Ill. Hoyt did not immediately respond to calls Friday.

After the letter to Walz was sent to members of the Hennepin County Chiefs of Police Association, Hoyt followed with another email saying the need for the PR firm “is not strictly about our communication involving” the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, adding, “your executive board decided recently that this is a good opportunity to build awareness and legitimacy on who we are as an association.”

County prosecutors and law enforcement work closely as cases move from police investigations to criminal charges and court trials. The relationship is essential to the functioning of the legal process across governmental agencies.

Moriarty’s process for charging use-of-force cases came under scrutiny after Londregan shot and killed Cobb during a traffic stop last year.

State troopers pulled over Cobb for driving without taillights on July 31, 2023. When troopers searched his name, they learned he was accused in Ramsey County of violating a standing domestic order for protection. As Londregan and trooper Brett Seide tried to extract Cobb from the car, he put it in drive and the car lurched forward. Londregan shot Cobb twice before the car drove away with Londregan and Seide both being thrown aside. Cobb died at the scene.

Moriarty charged Londregan with second-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter in January, and the case quickly became controversial.

Londregan lawyer Chris Madel maintained from the moment charges were filed that Londregan had acted legally because he feared for his life and that of Seide, who had the upper half of his body in Cobb’s car when it was put in gear.

The case was marked with prosecutorial shakeups inside Moriarty’s office as Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Joshua Larson stepped aside and was replaced by outside counsel from Steptoe LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based international law firm with a contract that included an initial $1 million billing cap for its services.

Steptoe eventually charged the county $578,321 for its work and filed a lengthy report that was released by the County Attorney’s Office. The report found that there was little evidence to charge Londregan with murder and showed that several senior members of the State Patrol and experts in use of force would testify that Londregan had acted within departmental standards when shooting Cobb.

Moriarty told the Star Tribune when she dropped the charges in June that it was difficult but based on values of transparency in her office.

“It is a situation of recognizing that, given all the barriers that are put in place in these types of cases and the new information that came up, we just can’t ethically go forward,” she said.

Walz publicly expressed concerns over the handling of the case shortly after the MPPOA asked him to take it away from Moriarty and assign it to the Attorney General’s Office for prosecution. After dropping the case, Moriarty criticized the governor for his comments, given that Walz oversees the Department of Public Safety and therefore the state troopers and Londregan. She also accused him of treating her differently because she’s a “queer woman.” Walz denied that bias played into his comments.

A spokesperson for Walz did not respond immediately to an interview request.

In July, the MPPOA and former GOP Minnesota attorney general candidate Jim Schultz filed a 17-page complaint with the state’s Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility requesting that the oversight body launch an investigation into “unethical behavior” by Moriarty that they believe violated the organization’s code of conduct.