This past Sunday, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed in Minnesota following a routine traffic stop. After Officer Kimberly Potter fatally shot the young father, Wright’s aunt, Kelly Bryant, created a GoFundMe page to help the family deal with funeral expenses and mental health counseling. But as Bryant tells Insider, the fundraiser page has been riddled with hate-filled messages and emails directed at her nephew.
We reported on Tuesday that Potter allegedly mistook her taser for her gun during the incident. She allegedly shouted, “Taser!” before realizing that Wright had been struck with a bullet. She then said, “Holy sh**, I just shot him.”
Following the fatal shooting, Bryant set out to create a GoFundMe page to help Wright’s immediate family handle “funeral and burial expenses, mental health and grief counseling.” But although the page has nearly met its $900,000 goal, trolls have sent messages to the family accusatory and hate-filled messages.
Daunte Wright’s aunt says she’s received hateful emails after launching a GoFundMe page to cover her nephew’s funeral costs https://t.co/ItQZZCPVXf
— Insider News (@InsiderNews) April 13, 2021
Bryant explained to INSIDER that online strangers had accused her of stealing the money and not being Wright’s real aunt, saying “People have been saying, ‘You’re scandalous,’ ‘You’re stealing money from people,’ and ‘This is not even your nephew,’ It’s been crazy.”
“I didn’t think going into this, that it would be this much stress,” she continued. “And this much backlash and emails of millions of people saying it’s a fake account.”
Related Story: Officer Kim Potter, Who Shot Daunte Wright, Resigns; Charged with Manslaughter
Bryant has gotten so much backlash, that she added a section in the GoFundMe page for frequently asked questions, which explain how she’s related to Wright and that the family won’t be using the fundraised money for legal fees.
Potter has resigned from the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police force since the shooting. She was taken into custody on Wednesday and charged with second-degree manslaughter. According to the Wall Street Journal, she was released that same evening after posting bond and had been an officer for 26 years.
