Minnesota police chief, officer who fatally shot Black man, both resign

The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a Black motorist during an encounter that began as a routine traffic stop, and the police chief who called the slaying an apparent accident, both resigned yesterday following two nights of civil unrest.

The mayor of Brooklyn Center, which is adjacent to Minnesota’s largest city, said the two tendered their resignations a day after the chief told a news briefing that the officer who shot Daunte Wright, 20, on Sunday appeared to have drawn her gun rather than her Taser by mistake.

Mayor Mike Elliott also told reporters the City Council had passed a resolution calling for the dismissal of both the chief, Tim Gannon, and the officer in question, Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the police force.

“I’m hoping this will bring some calm to the community,” Elliott said, adding he had yet to accept Potter’s resignation, leaving open the door to firing her. “We want to send a message to the community that we are taking this situation seriously.”

Terminating Potter’s employment, rather than allowing her to resign, could adversely affect her pension and ability to find work in law enforcement elsewhere.

The move followed two nights of protests and clashes between demonstrators and police in Brooklyn Center, part of a region already on edge over the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis policeman charged with murdering George Floyd last May.

Floyd, 46, who died in handcuffs with his neck pinned to the street under Chauvin’s knee, became the face of a national movement against racial injustice and police violence as protests against his killing swept the United States last summer in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Amid snowfall on Tuesday evening, hundreds protesting Wright’s slaying marched from police headquarters in Brooklyn Center to an FBI field office, chanting: “No justice, no peace, prosecute the police.”

The rally was peaceful, with National Guard troops and law enforcement keeping a low profile in patrol vehicles stationed nearby. The crowd dispersed on its own as the snow grew heavier and temperatures plunged around nightfall, ahead of a curfew rolled back three hours by authorities to 10 p.m.

By contrast, scores of arrests were made on Sunday and Monday nights amid scattered looting and raucous demonstrations in which police fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators hurling bottles and other projectiles.

As the mayor spoke earlier on Tuesday, Wright’s relatives and supporters assembled near the Minneapolis courthouse where Chauvin is standing trial, and recounted for reporters the anguish of Wright’s loss.