Minnesota shooting
Officer who shot Daunte Wright resigns, as does police chief.
The police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Black man in a Minneapolis suburb Sunday has resigned, as has the police chief, the latest shake-up in a town reeling from the shooting.
The resignations did little to quell the calls for justice for Daunte Wright, 20, who was shot during a traffic stop. On Tuesday, Wright’s family called for the officer who shot Wright to be charged with murder. “Prosecute them, like they would prosecute us,” Nyesha Wright, the victim’s aunt, said at a news conference. “We want the highest justice.”
Her comments came amid a chaotic 24 hours in Brooklyn Center. On Monday night, the City Council fired the city manager and transferred control of the police department to the mayor. Late Tuesday morning, Kimberly Potter, the veteran officer who fatally shot Wright, resigned. Moments later, Mayor Mike Elliott announced that Police Chief Tim Gannon had resigned as well.
The developments come as a major police trial is playing out 10 miles from where Wright was shot. Closing arguments in the trial of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin are expected to start next week.
“This couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” Elliott previously said following Wright’s shooting. “We are collectively devastated.”
Outside the Hennepin County Court House in downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday, Wright’s family spoke to the media. During the news conference, family members wept and hugged as Wright’s 2-yearold son cried.
Jeffrey Storms, a Wright family attorney, criticized the police’s characterization of Potter’s actions as an accident. “An accident is knocking over a glass of milk, it’s not an accident to take your gun out of your holster,” Storms said. “Don’t tell us it’s an accident because it undermines the tragic loss of life that this family has experienced.”
The family gathered with members of George Floyd’s family and with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who now represents both families.
Shortly before they appeared before the media, Courtney Ross, Floyd’s girlfriend who testified in Chauvin’s murder trial last week, walked over to console Wright’s mother, Katie.
During Tuesday’s news conference, Katie Wright recounted her final phone call with her son, in which he called to say he had been stopped by police over an air freshener in his car and was being asked about insurance.
Katie Wright instructed her son to take down the dangling air freshener and offered to speak to police to provide the insurance information. She then heard officers return and tell Daunte to get out of the car.
“Am I in trouble?” she heard her son ask. She said the officers told her they would explain when he got out of the car. “I heard him get out of the car, and I could hear the officers scruffling with him,” she said. “Then I heard the police officer ask him to hang up the phone.”
Police body camera footage released Monday showed two male officers approach either side of Wright’s Buick before he was placed against the car and searched. A third officer, later identified as Potter, approaches as one of the male officers tries to handcuff Wright as he struggles to get back into the car.
Potter is heard off camera threatening to Taser Wright twice before shouting “Taser! Taser! Taser!” and firing what was actually a gun. Potter is then heard swearing and saying, “I just shot him.” Wright, who drove several blocks before crashing, was pronounced dead at the scene.