Amid Veepstakes, Minnesota Cops Push Walz to Back Off Police Violence Cases

All eyes are on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who’s emerged as a leading contender for Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick for the 2024 Democratic ticket. As the national spotlight focuses on Walz, critics have drawn attention to his decision to call the National Guard on protesters against police brutality in 2020. And now, Minnesota police are calling on Walz to remove a reform prosecutor from police use of force cases.

After Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020, voters elected a reform prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, who promised to prosecute police misconduct and take a restorative justice approach to prosecution.

The letter to Walz sent Wednesday from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept, asks the governor to remove Moriarty’s office from all past, present, and future police use of force cases. With a former prosecutor as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, this pressure on Walz brings to the fore the split within the Democratic Party over how to handle the demand for continued police and criminal justice reform, as conservatives and law enforcement push to undo the reforms that have been put in place.

The push against Moriarty isn’t unique to Minnesota. Critics of reform have moved to oust or restrict the authority of prosecutors in dozens of states as reformers started winning elections more frequently amid the growing push for criminal justice reform. Between 2017 and early 2023, more than 37 bills to remove or limit the power of reform prosecutors were introduced in 17 states. As of early 2023, that number grew to more than 53 measures in 26 states, including efforts to restrict the power of prosecutors who refused to charge people who sought abortions.

In the letter to Walz, MPPOA general counsel Imran Ali wrote that police were concerned about Moriarty’s handling of use-of-force cases and that the association had “deep concerns about the impartiality and bias” from Moriarty against law enforcement. He suggested that Attorney General Keith Ellison could handle the cases “with proper funding.” Ellison built his career on reform and was once an ally of Moriarty’s. Last year, he removed a case from Moriarty’s office in which she declined to charge two teenage brothers accused of murder as adults.

“There is no way County Attorney Moriarty can act without bias and be impartial,” Ali wrote. “A significant number of peace officers have reached out to me and are troubled and fearful of this county attorney handling any use of force matters.”

Moriarty’s critics in Minneapolis have been pushing to remove her from certain cases and oust her from the office since shortly after her term began in January 2023.

Last week, MPPOA filed an ethics complaint against Moriarty’s office for her handling of murder charges against a state trooper who killed a 33-year-old Black man, Ricky Cobb II, during a traffic stop last year. Moriarty’s office dropped the charges in June after the trooper’s defense team claimed that he was in fear for his partner’s life during the stop. Moriarty said the trooper used lawful force, and that her office couldn’t disprove his defense, but that she was “not backing down.”

Earlier this year, two Minnesota police associations sent a letter to Walz asking him to remove Moriarty from that case. At the time, four Republican members of Congress from Minnesota called for an investigation into Moriarty over the case, and at least one called on her to resign. Walz, MPPOA, and Moriarty’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We expect nothing less from a thoroughly corrupt police union that will do anything to prevent accountability for law enforcement accused of misconduct,” said Michael Collins, senior director of government affairs at Color of Change, a racial justice group. “Governor Tim Walz opened the door to these requests when he sided with the union in the Ricky Cobb II case. His behavior was shameful, up to and including calling the trooper’s defense lawyer to ask if they wanted the case to be reassigned to another county attorney. It’s no wonder the police union thinks he’s their guy. He should denounce the request and stop trying to pander to the right on criminal justice by undermining police accountability.”

Moriarty responded to the MPPOA’s ethics complaint last week, criticizing the police association for lobbying against efforts to hold police accountable and opposing regulations that would ban law enforcement from being involved in white supremacists groups.

The police group objected to Moriarty’s critiques in their letter to Walz this week. “These divisive comments were meant to divide our communities and elucidate her bias and belief that all peace officers are tied to white supremacist organizations,” Ali wrote. “As a person of color, and the general counsel of MPPOA, I find her comments offensive, repulsive and intend to injure and harm law enforcement all over the state, including harming my personal reputation.”

Walz is not the only vice presidential candidate with a fraught relationship with the criminal justice reform movement. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another pick on Harris’s list, has also backed efforts to strip Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner of his authority to prosecute certain crimes. When Shapiro was state attorney general in 2019, his office pushed the Philadelphia Inquirer to be more critical of Krasner, The Intercept reported. Shapiro also backed a controversial bill passed by Pennsylvania lawmakers to strip Krasner’s ability to prosecute certain gun crimes in the city and give concurrent jurisdiction to the AG’s office. Shapiro’s office later said he would not use the measure to “act unilaterally or go around DA Krasner.” Local activists later pressured Shapiro into saying he would support a repeal of the bill.

Correction: August 1, 2024, 2:04 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association as a union. The references have been removed.