31 March 2024
Minnesota State Patrol chief Col. Matt Langer talks with a reporter in his office at the State Patrol headquarters in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Langer, who previously handled crash reconstructions, keeps a large framed photograph on his office wall showing the tangled wreckage of a crash as a reminder of the importance of the State Patrol’s mission. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
A large framed photograph hangs on Col. Matt Langer’s office wall, showing the tangled wreckage of a crash.
The Minnesota State Patrol chief captured the moment years ago as part of his investigation when he handled crash reconstructions. Two people died in the crash.
“That’s a reminder of the importance of the mission that we do,” Langer said.
As Langer leaves the State Patrol on Friday, the primary mission of the State Patrol remains the same — keeping people safe on the state’s highways — though what goes along with that work has changed during Langer’s long tenure as chief.
Troopers have seen more dangerous driving behavior in recent years, with 2021’s 488 traffic fatalities the most in the state since 2007. Preliminary information shows 414 people died in crashes throughout the state last year.
The State Patrol has also faced scrutiny, from lawsuits that stemmed from the 2020 civil unrest after George Floyd was killed to a state trooper recently criminally charged with fatally shooting Ricky Cobb II during a traffic stop in Minneapolis.
Three weeks after the Hennepin County attorney charged trooper Ryan Londregan in Cobb’s death, Langer announced that he’s leaving the State Patrol to work for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
He said the Londregan charges were “not at all” related to why he’s departing. In fact, the case “tugged at me to stay,” he said.
“I thought about it for a long time and wondered if it was the right thing to do because I still love this job,” Langer said in an interview. “I’m not running from this job at all — all of the challenges, all of the difficulty, all of the politics — I’m still driven by it, but this new opportunity is one I couldn’t pass up. To do things on a bigger scale beyond Minnesota is intriguing.”
Sgt. Mike LeDoux has known Langer since shortly after Langer became a trooper in 1999.
“I think most people would look back, particularly on the last few years, and agree that they’re without a doubt probably the most challenging of our profession,” said LeDoux, president of the state troopers union.
While there are always times of disagreement between rank-and-file and management, LeDoux said he’s viewed Langer as a pragmatic leader who “surrounded himself with smart people, valued input from the field” and “embraced problem solving.”
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Langer, 46, grew up in Falcon Heights, graduated from Roseville Area High School and, among other degrees, has his master’s in public and nonprofit administration from Metro State University.
Langer is one of the two longest-serving chiefs of the State Patrol, along with Col. Roger Ledding, who was chief from 1979 to 1989. Langer was named acting chief in March 2014 and officially appointed as chief in January 2015. He worked in various roles previously, including as a lieutenant, the State Patrol’s public information officer and assistant chief.
He recently sat down with the Pioneer Press to look back at his 25 years at the State Patrol, which included advocating for the adoption of the state’s cellphone hands-free law, working to address challenges with law enforcement and community relations, and supporting troopers’ well-being by expanding the internal peer support team.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Col. Matt Langer Q&A
Minnesota State Patrol chief Col. Matt Langer with photos of his predecessors that line the walls of the Minnesota State Patrol office in St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Q: After becoming a trooper, assigned to the metro area, what was it like to be a crash-reconstruction investigator?
A: I handled a lot of high-profile cases: Shawn Silvera, the Lino Lakes officer who was killed (when a driver fleeing from officers struck him in 2005). Herb Brooks (the Olympic hockey coach who died in a 2003 crash near Forest Lake). I also did hundreds of other crashes that were never in the news but were equally traumatic for families.
Q: You had a tradition of sending cards to families on the anniversaries of their loved one’s death in a crash. Sharon Pearson, whose 14-year-old daughter Hannah died in a 2005 Forest Lake crash, told me you’ve been a “powerful force of support.” How did you get started with sending these cards?
A: I knew a retired trooper wrote cards on the anniversary of a crash that he helped to investigate. Once my career brought me closer to some families who lost loved ones, I decided to further what Sgt. Tom Ludford had started. When he passed away, I began writing cards to the Degnan family (who Ludford had stayed in contact with) so his legacy could continue.
Q: What has it been like to be a chief law enforcement officer during this time, not just since George Floyd but also Philando Castile (who was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer in 2016 in Falcon Heights)?
A: It’s exceptionally difficult because beyond wanting to be perfect as the chief, you also have an innate desire for everyone within the organization to always be perfect. It’s a totally unrealistic sort of vision, but it’s what drives us to be as good as we can be. In the moments where perfection isn’t possible, it can be when the greatest public scrutiny comes our way.
Q: Sharon Press (director of the Dispute Resolution Institute at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law) told me she invited you to be an advisory member of the Truth and Action project, which they describe as “addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system in Minnesota.” She said you never shied away from the work and were committed that anyone who had an interaction with a trooper “walked away from it feeling they were treated with dignity and respect.” What did you talk about at the Truth and Action public panel discussion last year?
A: I talked about trying to be innovative and being realistic. A lot of people talk about how to make accountability go up, but it needs to be rooted in reality. What does it actually mean and what are we actually trying to accomplish sometimes gets lost in that.
Q: What tangible steps have you taken?
A: The body-worn cameras certainly help. (Troopers were equipped with them for the first time beginning in 2021.) At the same time, the only time we ever make body-worn cameras public is when something tragic has happened. So the public doesn’t get to see all the good work that happens on body-worn cameras.
Beyond that, it’s the fundamentals. It’s training, it’s policies, it’s leadership, it’s hiring the right people. It’s the organizational culture that you’re bringing people into. And it’s always pushing to improve, pushing to be better and never settling for, “Well, we’re doing a good job.”
Q: When I talked to Nicole Archbold, the Department of Public Safety’s community affairs director, she said you decided to have community members start taking part in scenario training with incoming troopers going through the State Patrol academy. She said it’s meant the public can also learn what goes into traffic stops from a “non-threatening, controlled environment.” How did you come up with that idea?
A: During a conversation with the African American Leadership Council in St. Paul, the idea of inviting that group and others came to mind. The chance for community leaders to see our training firsthand, participate in our training as role players and then have conversations about perspectives is invaluable.
Q: I’ve written about the increase in assaults on law enforcement in Minnesota in recent years. How have your troopers been affected?
A: One of the things that we’ve witnessed is there seems to be a little bit more roadside disagreement or just sort of defiance in the motoring public.
I think that you see that also in the fatality rate and the driving behavior. You also see that when you talk to people in schools or hospitals, like there’s just a little more edginess in the world. It weighs on my mind because I never want troopers to be in a disagreement or having to use force or having to be dealing with someone who’s defiant, because the risk goes up in those situations.
Q: What days stick out to you in your career?
A: The bad days and the good days, the extremes. I can think of really bad days, like giving flags at funerals for troopers who have died of cancer or being at police funerals. I stood on the interstate while officer Shawn Silvera’s wife, Jennifer, showed up. He was still in the ambulance and the coroner gave her his wedding ring.
Then, there’s a ton of successes that stick out, whether it’s the hands-free bill at the Legislature or the relationships that I’ve been able to maintain over the years with people as a result of tragedies.
Q: Lawmakers recently approved funding for a new helicopter and single-engine plane for the State Patrol. How has your agency’s aviation unit changed?
A: The newest helicopter, our third, is coming this fall. It’s a twin-engine helicopter that allows us to do hoist rescuing and rescue people at night, which we can’t do right now.
The service we provide is both for violent crime and carjacking and pursuits (following the whereabouts of suspects by air and alerting local law enforcement, so they can apprehend them) to try to mitigate risk (of vehicle pursuits by law enforcement), but also for rescuing injured people in the Boundary Waters.
Q: Journalists sued the State Patrol after the George Floyd protests and civil unrest, with a settlement reached in one (for $825,000) and pending in the other (for $1 million for attorneys and $200,000 for two journalists), and a judge banned Minnesota troopers from using force or arresting journalists unless they are suspected of a crime. What lessons have come out of this?
A: It was a horrific time in our state. You have to picture complete and total chaos, in a scale that we’ve never seen before, at least in my generation, and then you’re asking the Minnesota State Patrol to come into a local city to deal with unrest that we’ve never contemplated before, with the expectation that you stop the unrest and everything’s perfect. And perfection is just really hard in this line of work.
One of the most obvious changes we needed was to have stronger identification (so it was easier to read on riot gear) of who were the troopers. There were grainy videos or photos on Twitter from 3:30 in the morning and too many times we’d look at it and we don’t know: “Is it us, is it a different agency?” That’s just a really practical example.
We did it as fast as we could after May of 2020 (after Floyd was killed), so that we can be proud of the conduct that is the State Patrol and then also critical of the conduct that we think sometimes could have been better.
There’s been difficult moments where there’s been portrayals of the State Patrol and it’s not who we are.
Q: If you felt like you couldn’t tell the State Patrol’s side, was it because you couldn’t talk due to the lawsuits?
A: Absolutely. Some of the most frustrating things as a leader is when you want to take the microphone and just tell the truth and be candid. But there’s a difficulty when you’re being sued, no matter what the case is, you just don’t have that ability.
Q: Do your troopers also understand that’s why you haven’t said anything publicly since trooper Londregan was charged?
A: One of the advantages I have is I’ve been with the organization for 25 years, so troopers know who I am. There’s moments when people wish I’d take the microphone, but that wouldn’t be honoring my position. There’s a time and place for it, but it’s not right now.
Q: What will you be doing in your new role as director of global policing for the International Association of Chiefs of Police?
A: I’ll be based in Minnesota, and traveling back and forth. There are three main components. One is the work that IACP does on traffic safety around the world with specific areas like South America. Honestly, they’re working in places where they don’t do traffic safety at all, and trying to help countries establish how to do traffic safety.
Q: You mentioned you think the biggest difference between being chief in 1974 and 2024 is the work now is 24/7. Will leaving that responsibility be a relief to you and your family?
A: If you don’t want to be the person who gets called about protests, critical incidents, troopers hurt, involvement in big crashes, then you probably have no business being the chief. You should be driven to be the person who gets called.
It’s a tremendous responsibility and so you accept that and your family accepts it with you. My wife has a picture of me on every vacation standing somewhere in a swimsuit on my phone for a work call. She jokes about it, she takes a picture.
Q: What advice would you give to the person who comes after you? (Lt. Col. Christina Bogojevic will be serving as interim chief, with the Department of Public Safety commissioner appointing the next chief.)
A: No. 1, you have to be who you are. Show people that you care and really believe in the mission.
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