Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” to file state charges in the deadly shooting without cooperation from the FBI, which state officials said is now solely leading the investigation into the incident.
“They do have all the evidence in the original investigative notes and reports. We have none of that. They have shared none of that with us,” Jacobson said during Thursday’s press briefing. “We would welcome the opportunity to jump back in to do that investigation, use our high-quality investigators from the [state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension] to be able to do that with them, to find the answers that the public deserves.”
Without that information, “we would be at a loss to be able to initiate and conduct a thorough investigation,” he said.
Jacobson said he did not want to jump to any conclusions on fault in the shooting.
“What I will say, though, is that unless we do that thorough investigation, unless we have access to all of that evidence, unless we have access to the agents that were involved in that, to any witnesses, without any of that, we would not be able to put together a quality investigation for any prosecutor to be able to make a determination as to whether or not someone should be charged with a crime,” he said.
