MINNEAPOLIS – The officer who caused a fatal crash during a pursuit in north Minneapolis this week was closely following a suspect who sped through a red light, according to police records.
A Police Department incident report released Wednesday says that Officer Brian Cummings was northbound on Lyndale Avenue with lights and siren activated in pursuit of someone suspected of pulling off an armed carjacking and one or more robberies. The report went on to suggest that Cummings also went through a red light when he hit Leneal Frazier's SUV broadside.
"The suspect vehicle disobeyed the red light and the squad followed," the report said. "In the space where the suspect vehicle had cleared the intersection and the time the squad was entering the intersection, [Frazier] entered the intersection."
Cummings struck Frazier's vehicle, which then struck a minivan stopped at the red light facing southbound before crashing into a Metro Transit bus shelter, the report read.
Frazier was taken to the hospital, where he was stable but "suddenly coded at the hospital," the report continued. "Hospital staff were able to get a pulse back but lost it again and the driver was pronounced at the hospital."
These details were released this week as Mayor Jacob Frey announced the city will review yet again its police pursuit policy in the wake of the chase early Tuesday that ended with the officer hitting an SUV broadside and killing its driver, 40-year-old Leneal Frazier, at N. Lyndale and 41st avenues.
Frazier, of St. Paul, was the uncle of Darnella Frazier, the young Black woman whose cellphone video of George Floyd's death in May 2020 helped convict fired police officer Derek Chauvin of murder.
In an interview Thursday with the Star Tribune after announcing a pursuit policy review, Frey said Leneal Frazier's death under these circumstances was enough to prompt further scrutiny.
"Simply put, a man is dead," he said. "We have a moral obligation to see that department policy values the sanctity of life over everything else."
MPD's pursuit policy, updated in June 2019 after chases jumped 25% over three years, states that police may no longer initiate a pursuit or must terminate a pursuit in progress if it "poses an unreasonable risk to the officers, the public or passengers of the vehicle being pursued who may be unwilling participants."
The policy reads that officers can only give chase in situations in which they believe a suspect has committed or is about to commit "a serious and violent felony or gross misdemeanor." It also allows for a pursuit if the suspect's driving is "so flagrantly reckless that the driver would pose an imminent and life-threatening danger to the public if not apprehended."
Later on the same day of the crash, police spokesman John Elder said that Cummings' pursuit of the carjacking and robbery suspect "fit the criteria."
There is video from the squad's dashboard camera and the officer's body-worn camera, but police have yet to say what might have been recorded. Surveillance video from a gas station on the corner shows the squad car and Frazier's westbound SUV entering the intersection apparently without slowing down before the squad smashes into the driver's side of Frazier's SUV.
The State Patrol is investigating, while police continue to look for the subject of the pursuit.
Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who helped the Floyd family win a $27 million wrongful death suit against the city, said Thursday that he's been retained by the Frazier family.
"Police pursuits should be rare, and law enforcement should take the greatest of precautions to protect all involved, especially innocent drivers and bystanders," Crump said in a statement announcing his role with the Frazier family. "We expect a timely and transparent investigation by the Minneapolis State Patrol. The Frazier family deserves answers and accountability as they try to make sense of this terrible and preventable tragedy."
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