Ex-Minneapolis cop pleads guilty in fatal high-speed crash
Updated April 28, 10:20 a.m. | Posted April 27, 7:40 p.m.
A former Minneapolis police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with a fatal crash. Brian Cummings, 39, admitted in court that he was chasing a vehicle stolen in a carjacking at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour on July 6, 2021 when he struck the car of Leneal Frazier, killing him.
While on patrol, Cummings said that he spotted a Kia Sportage SUV that matched the description of a vehicle connected to several business thefts.
Cummings turned on his siren and lights and tried to pull it over, but the driver sped off. Cummings chased the Kia for more than 20 blocks through residential streets in north Minneapolis.
According to the criminal complaint that Hennepin County prosecutors filed later in 2021, Cummings was going north on Lyndale Avenue as Frazier was driving west on 41st Avenue.
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Frazier, 40, had a green light, but his view was obstructed and he could not see the northbound vehicles. The stolen Kia narrowly missed Frazier’s Jeep. But Cummings’ squad car struck it on the driver’s side. Frazier died about 90 minutes later.
Mike Freeman, who was Hennepin County attorney at the time, called Cummings’ actions reckless and negligent and said he violated the Minneapolis Police Department’s pursuit policy, which prohibits vehicle pursuits if they pose “an unreasonable risk” to officers or the public.
Mary Moriarty, who continued the prosecution after taking over as Hennepin County attorney in January, said in a statement after the plea hearing that Cummings’ “reckless driving conduct … is not representative of the many men and women in law enforcement who act and drive responsibly with respect for the safety of our community members.”
Investigators determined that Cummings' squad car hit Frazier’s Jeep at about 78 miles per hour. Frazier was driving at the posted speed limit of 25 miles an hour.
In exchange for pleading guilty to a count of criminal vehicular homicide, prosecutors agreed to drop a count of second-degree manslaughter. Cummings’ plea hearing came four days before jury selection had been scheduled to start in his trial.
The plea agreement calls for Cummings to serve up to a year in the Hennepin County workhouse. Judge Tamara Garcia will determine his exact sentence. She set a sentencing hearing for June 22.
After Cummings entered his plea. Frazier’s brother Richard Frazier said that he was pleased Cummings is being held accountable.
“We accept it. Not fully. We’re dealing with it, and we understand that he’s going to do something, so he [can] sit down and think about what he did,” Frazier said. “There’s no time that he can do that’s going to get my brother back. So at this point it doesn’t matter too much as long as he does something.”
Besides his brother, Frazier left behind six children and a large extended family. His niece is Darnella Frazier, the young woman who recorded video of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
With Cummings’ guilty plea, Jeff Storms, an attorney who represents the Frazier family, said he will move forward with discovery ahead of an expected civil suit.
“Now that the criminal process is concluded, we’ll finally start to get access to a bunch of the critical information that we need to figure [out] how many different layers of failures there were here,” Storms said. “Was it just Officer Cummings? Was it the supervisors? Was it the training? And I think we’re hearing information that the problem likely is broader.”
The alleged driver of the stolen Kia, James Jeremiah Jones-Drain, 20, was charged in September with vehicle theft and fleeing police resulting in death. He was booked into the Hennepin County Jail in January and is being held on $1 million bond.
Jones-Drain is also charged in a dozen other felony cases; most are robberies he’s alleged to have committed throughout 2021 at stores in Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, and Crystal.