Photo courtesy of Abc11.com
The Brooklyn Center Police Department said the police officer accidentally killed Daunte Wright, a young black man, 20, on Sunday over a traffic violation in Minnesota.
The New York Times reported that the officer’s name was Kimberly Potter, but a body-camera video was released regarding the shooting.
In the video, the officer shouted “Taser,” and suddenly realized that Wright was shot when she said, “Holy s***. I just shot him.”
“It is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” said Chief Tim Gannon of the Brooklyn Center Police Department. “This appears to me, from what I viewed, and the officer’s reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in a tragic death of Mr. Wright.”
Brooklyn Center Police Department stated that Daunte had a warrant, and the police were trying to take him into custody. The 20-year-old man reportedly got into his vehicle, and the officer shot him. Daunte drove a few blocks before crashing into another car.
“All he did was have air fresheners in the car, and they told him to get out of the car,” said Katie Wright, Wright’s mother. “He got out of the car, and his girlfriend said they shot him,” she said. “He got back in the car, and he drove away and crashed, and now he’s dead on the ground since 1:47. Nobody will tell us anything. Nobody will talk to us. I said, please take my son off the ground.”
Wright also added that her son had air fresheners hanging from the car and specified that she spoke with her son when the officer had initially pulled him over. When Wright spoke with her child, she heard someone say, “Daunte, don’t run,” before the call ended. Then, she called her son’s phone back, and the girlfriend told her that Daunte had been shot.
Protests began as tensions from civilians against law enforcement rise– in part due to Derek Chauvin’s murder trial, associated with George Floyd’s death.
The Star Tribune reported that Wright’s relatives came together with a crowd of 30,000 people in the suburban city to protest against the shooting. The family explained that he was driving for a short time, crashed the car, and died at the shooting scene. Protestors marched with the family with Black Lives Matter signs and flags.
Protesters got into formation, walking to the Brooklyn Center station and shouting Wright’s name, located on N. 67th Avenue and N. Humboldt Avenue. Officers asked 500 protestors to leave and used tear gas, flashbangs, and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
The crowd broke police car windshields, 20 businesses were damaged, including a Walmart, and looters broke into other stores, including GameStop and UPS. Mayor Mike Elliot created a curfew between the hours of 1 a.m; to 6 a.m.
Daunte’s mom spoke out against the chaos, saying that violence wasn’t the answer.
“All the violence, if it keeps going, it’s only going to be about the violence. We need it to be about why my son got shot for no reason,” said Wright. “We need to make sure it’s about him and not about smashing police cars because that’s not going to bring my son back.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. USA Today reported that Mayor Elliot made a statement on the shooting on his Twitter page.