Star Tribune
Man, 33, shot dead by State Patrol on I-94 in north Minneapolis
A Minnesota State Trooper shot and killed a Black motorist early Monday morning after the agency said he fled a routine traffic stop on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis.
Although authorities have not named the motorist, family members identified the driver as 33-year-old Ricky Cobb II, of Spring Lake Park. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner also confirmed that Cobb died Monday. The State Patrol revealed that the shooting was captured on body camera and squad car dash cam footage, and promised to release it soon.
Cobb is the latest Black motorist killed by law enforcement in the Twin Cities following high-profile incidents dating back several years that drew intense protest, including the shooting deaths of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights and Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.
On Monday afternoon, the State Patrol issued a statement outlining their version of events that led to the fatal shooting on westbound I-94 near 42nd Avenue N. According to the statement, state troopers spotted a Ford Fusion with no taillights travelling north near Lowry Avenue just after 1:50 a.m. and pulled the driver over. During the stop, troopers learned that the motorist was “wanted by law enforcement in Ramsey County in connection with a felony level violation.” (The State Patrol did not detail what that violation was.)
“As the troopers worked to detain the driver, the driver refused to exit the vehicle,” the statement continued. “Troopers were attempting to remove the driver from the vehicle when the driver drove away.”
At some point, a trooper fired at the motorist, the statement said. Three troopers since have been placed on standard administrative leave. They have yet to be named. It’s not immediately clear how many of them troopers fired their weapons — or exactly what triggered the use of deadly force.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) responded to the scene to investigate what the State Patrol originally dubbed as “use of force” incident.
Cobb was wanted for questioning in relation to an alleged violation of a standing domestic order for protection. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office on Friday issued a 72-hour request for agencies to pick up and hold Cobb related to that felony-level violation, according to a department spokesman. The order, which grants law enforcement probable cause to detain individuals, would have expired later Monday morning.
Cobb’s stepmother, Kashina Cobb, told the Star Tribune that she doesn’t know specifics about the encounter.
“I don’t want to blame the police or anything,” she said. “I don’t know what has transpired. I’m trying to process what happened.”
Kanisha Cobb confirmed that the “felony violation” referenced in the State Patrol statement involves an active order for protection in Ramsey County taken out by a woman who is the mother of the Cobb’s 6- and 5-year-old children.
“We weren’t on the best of terms,” Kashina Cobb said, “but we loved him.”
Cobb’s friends and family took to social media Monday to share an outpouring of disbelief and grief for Cobb, who was memorialized in photos and videos dancing and mugging for the camera with his friends and siblings, and posing both nattily dressed in a suit as well as at a worksite, wearing safety gear and holding a giant wrench.
“Watch over us my brother,” his sister Octavia Ruffin wrote.
The State Patrol finished outfitting its department in body cameras last May and troopers are now required to activate them during most interactions with the public, including during traffic stops and crash investigations. Body cameras are supposed to automatically turn on if a trooper draws a Taser or service handgun.
Troopers involved in Monday’s stop had body and squad car cameras activated at the time of the shooting. Col. Matt Langer said his agency is “working expeditiously to release the video after providing the family an opportunity to view it.”
In a brief interview, Cobb’s father, Ricky Cobb, said the family is “just waiting for the report” in order to learn what happened to his son.
“He just bought the car several months ago, so I don’t think the taillights were out,” his father said, responding to State Patrol’s rationale for the original traffic stop.
Events captured on Minnesota Department of Transportation traffic management cameras unfolded about 2:15 a.m. on the right shoulder of the freeway about a two miles north of downtown Minneapolis. Though video is dark, it appeared troopers were conducting a traffic stop near the Dowling Avenue exit.
At one point, the stopped motorist drove away from the scene and at least two troopers are seen running back to their squads, video shows.
According to emergency dispatch audio, a trooper is heard saying “vehicle took off” and “shots fired” over dispatch audio. The trooper is given permission to pursue, according to the recording. Two minutes later, troopers called for medics, reporting three gunshot wounds to the abdomen. Cobb died at the scene.
MnDOT video showed at least two squad cars had surrounded the fleeing vehicle, a gray sedan, and had it boxed in against the center concrete median near 42nd Avenue N.
The westbound lanes of the freeway were shut down from I-394 to 49th Avenue for about seven hours as law enforcement and BCA agents investigated. Forensic analysts combed the median and adjacent right-of-way with a police canine for bullet casings into the morning rush hour.
Including Cobb’s death, at least 230 people have been killed in encounters with law enforcement in Minnesota since the year 2000.
Staff writer Jeff Hargarten contributed to this report.
“It’s been a huge shift,” he said.
Deqa Muhidin, a former schoolteacher, children’s book author and Somali language heritage program coordinator at the Minneapolis Public Schools Multilingual Department, said the Sing-Again project would be a great addition to what was already in place.
The district’s Somali Heritage Language Program was launched in 2021 and has grown to 270 students in kindergarten through fourth grade.
The program is more than a language-learning program, she said, also teaching Somali culture.
The Somali language has its own cultural insights, which are only spoken by elders, and once they are no longer here, those insights will be lost, Muhidin said. For example, elders might use the phrase, “Look at something in your foot,” meaning run. Or a merchant may tell a customer, “I’m going to close my eyes,” meaning this is my final offer, she said.
An area shuttle service hopes to help ease Freeborn County’s health care woes by offering free rides to local hospitals.
SMART Transit, which operates in Austin, Albert Lea and Owatonna, is expanding its medical ride service for Freeborn County residents next year thanks to a $10,000 grant. The shuttle company will offer free rides to Mayo Clinic hospitals in Albert Lea and Austin for residents age 55 and up, addressing a problem for residents who’ve seen medical services in the region shrink over the years.
“We’re quite ecstatic,” said Chris Thompson, operations manager at SMART Transit. “I can’t even explain how wonderful news it is.”
Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea announced service cuts in 2017, urging people to travel to Austin, about 20 minutes east, for most inpatient hospital visits. Area residents organized to get Iowa-based MercyOne to open a primary care clinic in 2022, but pandemic-related complications and financial troubles led to the clinic closing at the beginning of 2024.
A group of Albert Lea residents approached SMART Transit officials earlier this year, asking for more medical shuttle service and expanded rides to hospitals. SMART has had a free ride program for seniors in Mower County for years thanks to Mayo Clinic grants, but there wasn’t funding to duplicate the program.
Mayo officials worked with SMART staff to secure grant money through the Naeve Health Care Foundation, a local group named after the former hospital that served Albert Lea residents since 1911. The foundation grants money for local health care issues including Mayo program funding; it has donated more than $4 million for community health care.
Freeborn County isn’t alone in struggling to access health care. For decades, hospitals in greater Minnesota have largely joined up with bigger systems or closed as the state’s population shifted to metropolitan areas. Some smaller hospitals have tried banding together to save money, while others find niches in the area to offer better services.
Yet a growing population of seniors means an ever-increasing need to get them to doctor’s appointments, and rural communities are struggling to meet transportation demands. Minnesota’s senior population (age 65 and older) grew from about 680,000 residents in 2010 to almost 950,000 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Not all of them have their own transportation.
As a photojournalism professor, R. Smith Schuneman mixed high expectations with a warm manner to launch the careers of a wide spectrum of photographers.
His students at the University of Minnesota, many of whom regarded Schuneman as a pivotal influence in their lives, went on to shoot for National Geographic, Look, Life and numerous other magazines and newspapers, as well as for corporate clients, photography studios and a wide array of film and video productions.
Then Schuneman, who went by his nickname “Smitty” and never by his given name of Raymond, embarked on a second career with the creation of Media Loft , an events and communications agency. He eventually sold the company to his employees before retiring with his wife, Pat, to a lakeside home in Okoboji, Iowa.
“Smitty could be utterly ruthless, uncompromising or unyielding in his goal of making photojournalists out of us,” wrote Richard Olsenius, a former student of Schuneman’s, in a memorial book prepared by friends. “But it was underlied with a deep-rooted concern for what is right and moral. He demanded honesty from our work.”
He died Nov. 24 at age 88 of heart problems.
Schuneman was born in 1936 in Spirit Lake, Iowa. His parents Raymond “Art” and Olive “Bunch” Schuneman ran the local newspaper in Milford, Iowa, and it was there that Schuneman began publishing photos while still in school.
He also ran a side business covering weddings, events and “whatever pictures were needed around the small town,” his wife said.
She remembers seeing Schuneman for the first time when her band director arranged for her to take drum lessons from him. She was 15 and he was 16. She later worked for him at his photo service, processing the film.
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