MINNEAPOLIS, MN (trfnews.i234.me) Officials have a news conference and release video of officer involved shooting in Minneapolis.
yeah thank you Howie um hello thank you for joining us today and Bob Jacobson and I serve as the commissioner of the State’s Department of Public Safety first first let me offer my sincerest condolences to the family Mr Cobb the Cobb family has experienced in a mess and immense loss and tragedy anytime a loved one is no longer with us it’s incredibly difficult and shocking but today I’m here with Colonel Langer to share the video of this incident I will also reiterate that the Bureau of Criminal apprehension Force investigations unit is working to gather the facts of this incident and it is a top priority but it will take time as is their usual process once they complete their initial investigation they will release additional details about this incident including the names of the people involved more detailed description of the incident and how it unfolded and any evidence recovered at the scene some more information will be released by the end of the week by the BCA but today we will share video with the public and I’ll turn to Colonel Matt Langer the chief of the State Patrol for a few remarks before we share that video thank you thanks commissioner my name is Matt Langer I have the honor and privilege of serving as Chief Colonel of the Minnesota State Patrol all that has transpired in the past couple of days and one of my opening remarks to Echo the sentiment from the commissioner is when I think about everything that I’ve seen and been through in the past couple of days in my job the one way that I would classify it is this is just a tremendously sad situation it’s sad from every perspective and for everyone involved the state patrol is committed to doing a very best to be responsive and transparent while also honoring the investigative process as you probably noticed yesterday we committed to releasing a body-worn camera video as rapidly as we could but only after the family was allowed an opportunity to view it first which is exactly what the commissioner and I spent this afternoon doing we’ll be showing you a video of the incident Squad and body worn camera along with one still photo and allow for a few facts of the case that we can release today please remember this is still an open and active investigation and many of the answers we simply don’t have yet and the Minnesota state patrol is not the investigating agency so questions about the investigation are not things that I’m aware of I’ll do my best to answer questions and it’s my spirit generally in a news conference to be very helpful and I’m predicting today there will be an awful lot of I can’t talk about that I don’t know it’s part of the investigation I don’t have the answer here’s what I can tell you about the incident just before 1 50 a.m early Monday morning a state patrol Trooper was monitoring traffic coming out of downtown on Interstate 94. that’ll be a normal practice for our Troopers who work overnight hours in their search for impaired drivers and watching for traffic violations while observing traffic the trooper saw Ford Fusion without any tail lights on traveling Northbound on Interstate 94 near Lowry Avenue Minneapolis the trooper pulled this vehicle over and during the course of that investigation that traffic stop Troopers learned that the driver was actually wanted by law enforcement at Ramsey County in connection with a felony order for protection violation that certainly prolonged the interaction roadside as the Troopers worked to validate and confirm that that want on this individual was still in effect and that they had the right person as they work to detain the driver to get him out of the vehicle the driver refused to exit troopers were attempting to remove the driver from the vehicle verbally and then moved in as he drove away a state patrol Trooper discharged their firearm during the course of this incident life-saving measures were immediately provided by the Troopers until Emergency Services arrived three state patrol troopers were placed on administrative leave which is normal and part of State Patrol policy we’re going to start by showing a still image of the vehicle that went by the trooper just so you can see I think it’s important to show this is this was the first image that a still image from the video that depicts what the trooper saw as the vehicle went by um as we move into the four videos that I’m going to show I want to preface that to say I’m not going to talk during the videos I’m not going to narrate I think it’s my belief that the videos should play on their own and people should develop their own thoughts about the video rather than be perceived or being trying to inject some sort of narrative over the top of the video so I’ll let the videos play the commissioner and I can stand for any questions and answer those that we can for a while here there’s three body worn camera videos that you’ll see and then there’s one Squad video that we’re prepared to also show today the first video is the trooper’s body worn camera behind the driver’s side of the vehicle that was pulled over it ask that please foreign right time foreign please come up here but when you say if I can give me your prisoners score now [ __ ] dress [Music] ES [Music] [Music] foreign and try life-saving efforts the fourth and final video we’re prepared to show today is uh one of the Troopers their squad Dash video their dash camera so it provides a little more context versus the body worn cameras to get into the technology but the audio follows the camera so in this case the audio is obviously different because the squat is coming from the squad camera which is you know at a different location than the body worn camera so but this video also first person [Music] foreign but you know for really difficult videos to watch I’ve seen them a number of times it doesn’t get any easier at all um as someone who cares about other human beings and has the job that I do it’s uh not easy difficult is an understatement that said I mentioned I won’t be able to answer a ton of questions particularly those about the investigation but both the commissioner and I are willing to do what we can for a while here to help answer questions you have in the immediate aftermath of viewing a video um your hotel address um so I’m trying to understand is this scanner operation asking word whatever wants to set out a vehicle I think your teachers just tell them what you were put up for um and a lot of things and yeah there’s different ways to look at that issue but when I witness or observe the conduct the Troopers and the conversation they’re having I wouldn’t say it’s out of the ordinary for their interactions with people they simply asked him to get out of the car and they had lots of reason to do so right yeah I know it’s a question that certainly will come out as part of the investigation I haven’t visited with the Troopers about what they were thinking or why they did what they did so I can’t speak to that what they were thinking um yeah I want to be careful not to get into the investigative side but the video of the trooper who fired rounds is the one who was at the passenger side I don’t have that confirmed sorry another question for the BCA as part of their investigation a couple of different times an independent investigation going on a lot of the questions that you guys have we have those same questions we continue to get into the questions and it’s not out of disrespect or anything I used to be a reporter and understand the need for these questions to be asked but there are questions that will be answered by the investigation if I just don’t want to have the kernel or commissioner saying we can’t answer that because of the investigation for the next several months you mentioned the this little reducing parallelism uh the reason that they wanted to take them out was because of this domestic abuse um violation but was it a warranty just kind of clarify what this was again yeah so and I should have repeated the question for those that are online I’m sorry so the question is about was this a warrant or not it was not a warrant it was a pickup and hold for a felony order for protection violation that originated from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office and then so just a follow up on that is that something that would appear like on the computer that could tell us that from the trooper’s point of view the question relates to how does the trooper become aware of that information it absolutely does come back so in the event that a driver who’s the registered owner has that pick up and hold when the trooper runs their license plate part of the information that comes back would include that information similar to a warrant but unique because it’s uh different than a warrant is the need to confirm that pick up and hold with the originating agency and so that was part of what the troopers were doing that took some time with the traffic stop before we showed the deadly force encounter here but that’s exactly what they did is confirm that this is still an active pickup and hold that the agency who desires this individual be brought into custody still believes they have probable cause and that it is the correct person that’s the reference for Ramsey County that they made exactly the question is is that the reference to Ramsey County yes that’s where this pickup and hold originated from was the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office so their confirmation would go back to that originating agency why don’t we hear the gunshots a question is a very good one why don’t we hear the gunshots on the body worn camera I don’t have an answer for you on that we are equally perplexed um I suspect and I’m speculating that technicians or the technical engineers at axon would be better to answer that question um we live in a world where we watch a video and we see it and we hear it and then we think yep that’s what happened and for me in this case it just gives me pause to say why don’t we hear the gunshots on the body worn camera but yet we hear them very clearly on the squad video so part of the bca’s investigation will surely based on evidence and all the work that they do try to line up everything down to a fraction of a second but one of the body worn cameras in particular oddly it doesn’t record the gunshots even though it’s recording all of the other ambient noise one of the other body worn cameras captures what I I would I would categorize as a subdued gunshot and then the squad video with the window down clearly captures gunshots so that was something that we were initially perplexed by and we still are is yeah I’ll let the commissioner answer that and I’m happy to also answer uh yeah just to repeat the question I think in essence is that the BCA is uh part of a state agency part of the Department of Public Safety the Minnesota state patrol is also a part of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety um how would an investigator process work between those two agencies and and does that create public trust I I will uh let you know that obviously the Minnesota state patrol and the Bureau of Criminal apprehension are separate law enforcement agencies they act independently they do independent work they both have their chief law enforcement officers Colonel Matthew Langer who is here today and and superintendent Drew Evans who was with the Bureau of Criminal apprehension so they both have their law enforcement agencies and their duties anytime that there is officer-involved shooting in the state of Minnesota the Bureau of Criminal apprehension typically is asked to perform those investigations we have a specific unit within the Bureau of Criminal apprehensions the forces Investigation Unit which has been supported and funded through Direct legislative priorities to go ahead and to be the go-to agency for law enforcement officer-involved shootings or use of four shootings or in custody deaths that has worked very well for a number of years in fact it was just recently funded for in the legislature to continue with that Force Investigation Unit through the creation of that process I mean this scenario was contemplated and through that work this is just the way that it was contemplated that it would occur that the Bureau of Criminal apprehension the force investigative unit which does not train with or have regular contact with any other law enforcement agencies including the state patrol would conduct those investigations it will be separate and independent from the Minnesota state patrol and as mentioned today you know my time spending spent with Colonel Langer is really specific to spending time with the family and walking through the video with you when I spend time with superintendent Evans that will be updates with the investigative process us but they are an independent process independent agency and I don’t provide Direction and control they do their investigation get the final product and then when that final product is completed there’s full transparency it’s available to the public it will go to the county attorney’s office in this case it would be Mary Moriarty of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office so again we we think that that process worked and and does work and we’ve done that several times can you just talk a little bit about what is the procedure or protocol get this rise to a use of force level based on the standards and other people and the question is how it relates to the use of force level for the state patrol for sure so we have very clear policies all available on our website this very clearly meets the threshold of the use of deadly force and so that triggers protocols within the organization including a critical incident review Downstream where we take a look at this incident from beginning to end to uncover any answers that we might want to come forward with related to training related to equipment related to supervisory notification related to protocol our goal is for these things to never happen and so when they do happen we shift really quickly into why did it happen and is there absolutely anything we can do in the future to make sure it doesn’t happen again so that critical incident review process is part of the puzzle of trying to determine that and that augments the incredibly anticipated investigation from the bureaucriminal apprehension too that once things are done also helps us to make decisions internally about what if anything should change I’m sorry I misunderstood image when you said meets the threshold of you some deadly force is well the question is what I meant by the answer to the meet the threshold the use of deadly force but firing um a service weapon in the direction of another human beings very clearly are you so deadly force so for us that would trigger that standard within our policy and protocol I apologize if I didn’t answer the question that you were asking but that’s how I interpreted it yeah that is way too deep into the investigation and what the individual troopers were thinking and I simply don’t know what they were thinking by defending your options to the escalated questions
Press Briefing and Footage Release of Minneapolis Officer-Involved Shooting
