Star Tribune
Brooklyn Center City Council rejects police reform policy governing traffic stops, searches
The Brooklyn Center City Council on a 3-2 vote has defeated a resolution that would have limited when police in the north metro suburb could initiate traffic stops.
Emotions were raw in the council chambers after Monday’s vote, which came after a committee — formed after Brooklyn Center officer fatally shot Daunte Wright in April 2021 — spent three years coming up with ways to limit situations when police could enact traffic stops and prohibit officers from asking drivers for consent to search their vehicles during a traffic stop unless there is probable cause and evidence that the motorist was linked to a crime.
Wright’s mother, Katie Wright lambasted the Council after its decision.
“You guys are some sorry people, and people are going to die because you won’t do the right thing,” Katie Wright said with tears flowing. “I have been fighting for three years. My son has been dead for 2 years and 9 months and you say no to a policy that is going to protect people.”
City officials established the Community Safety and Violence Prevention Implementation Committee in the wake of fatal police shootings of Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler. Wright was killed during a traffic stop when former police officer Kimberly Potter mistakenly used her gun instead of her taser and shot him. Dimock-Heisler was killed at home in 2019.
As part of a settlement with Wright’s family, the city agreed to pay $3.25 million to Daunte’s family and put up a memorial at the site of the fatal shooting.
The settlement also called for the city to make changes in police training and policies related to making traffic stops. The proposal would have prevented officers from stopping drivers solely for violations such as having inoperative windshield wipers, a cracked windshield, excessive window tinting, a noisy muffler, an improperly displayed or expired license plate or permit sticker, or for having broken or improperly used headlights, tail lights or turn signals.
Wright was stopped for having expired tabs and an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
Before Monday’s vote, Mayor April Graves said the “recommendations before us are a result of hours of research, many courageous conversations with community, staff and council, and the willingness to step into comfortable spaces.”
Graves and councilmember Marquita Butler voted in favor of the resolution, but three other council members voted against it.
Before the meeting, Wright was hopeful for a positive result, and encouraged supporters to attend Monday’s meeting.
“Please come stand with us and witness a City that has done so much harm to the community and to my family hopefully do the right thing and make meaningful change in which could’ve prevented his death and will save so many more,” she wrote on Facebook.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
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