Cops: Officer who shot Black man meant to fire Taser
The police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb on Sunday apparently intended to fire a stun gun, not a handgun, the city’s police chief said. A night of unrest resulted after a body-camera video of the killing was released.
BROOKLYN CENTER, MINN.
The suburban Minneapolis
police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old Black man during a traffic stop Sunday apparently meant to fire a stun gun but instead made an “accidental discharge” from her firearm, the police chief said Monday.
Less than 24 hours after an officer with the Brooklyn Center Police Department shot and killed Daunte Wright, Police Chief Tim Gannon played an unedited clip of police body-camera video showing the fatal incident for the media and members of the community at a City Hall news conference.
The shooting further roiled a community already on edge as it awaits a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd. Chauvin’s trial
is expected to wrap this week with closing arguments expected next Monday, the judge in the case said. Concerned that protests Sunday night prompted by the Wright shooting could resume Monday night, the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul each announced curfews. Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins and the National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Timberwolves postponed Monday’s games. President Joe Biden phoned Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott to express his support but said he would reserve judgment until an investigation is done.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, expressed his sympathies to Wright’s family during an afternoon news conference and said it was important to acknowledge that “we don’t have to continue having these press conferences, and having what may be a routine traffic stop and a 20-year-old dead, a family devastated and a community on edge.” He pledged to demand that the state legislature hold hearings on police policies he said have passed in other states with the support of law enforcement and community groups.
“We can stop pretending that this is just the natural order of the universe and that things happen this way,” Walz added.
The roughly one-minute video clip played by the police chief at a tense news conference starts with two male officers approaching Wright’s car — one on either side. After a brief conversation, the officer on the driver’s side takes Wright out of the car and begins to handcuff him. Wright struggles and a third officer, a woman, approaches from behind to assist. As Wright struggles, the third officer is heard threatening to use a stun gun on Wright.
In the chaotic seven seconds that follow, the female officer, who already has a weapon drawn, is heard yelling, “I’ll Tase you!” and then “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before firing.
Immediately afterward, she is heard saying, “Holy s–-, I shot him,” apparently realizing that she had fired her service weapon instead of her stun gun.
Gannon described it as an “accidental discharge
that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright.”
Gannon declined to identify the officer but described her as a veteran of the department and said she was immediately placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the shooting. His refusal to answer additional questions about the officer angered the some in the audience during the tense City Hall briefing.
“Why is it that police officers in the United States keep killing young Black men and young Black women at a far, far, far higher rate than they do White people?” one of the attendees asked.
“I don’t have an answer to that question,” Gannon
replied.
City officials shared their opposing views during the news conference, with Elliott saying the officer should be fired. Gannon and City Manager Curt Boganey said they wanted to hear from the officer herself and give her due process.
The political sparring continued with the city council voting later Monday to give the mayor command authority over the police department. The city manager was fired.
Meanwhile, the office of Washington County Attorney Pete Orput will determine whether to bring charges against the unidentified officer. Orput told the Star Tribune that he expects his office to do
a “thorough yet expedited” review of the case criminal complaint drafted no later than Wednesday morning.
“I’m hoping Wednesday, but I want to have the opportunity to give my condolences to his family and explain to them my decision,” Orput told the newspaper.
Wright is at least the 262nd person shot and killed by police so far this year, according to a Washington Post database that tracks such shootings. The cascade of reactions to his death indicate how accustomed the United States — and the Twin Cities area in particular — have grown to responding to such incidents.
Wright is the latest person in the United States to be shot by a police officer who said he or she inadvertently drew a firearm instead of a stun gun, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. A police officer in Lawrence, Kan., said she mistakenly used her firearm rather than a stun gun in a 2018 shooting. In 2019, an officer in New Hope, Penn., reported the same. In one of the most widely known cases, a former reserve deputy in Tulsa County, Okla., shot and killed Eric Harris, a Black man, in 2015. The deputy, Robert Bates, said he pulled his gun while intending to use his stun gun. Video footage captured a gunshot and Bates saying, ”I shot him. I’m sorry.” Bates was convicted of second-degree manslaughter.
Brooklyn Center police said they arrested two people after Sunday’s demonstrations; Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said his officers made between 25 and 30 arrests.
Brooklyn Center police had already erected fencing outside of their station Monday afternoon as the crowd grew to more than 100 people. The size of the law enforcement presence — made up of police and state troopers as well as National Guard troops — had grown as well, with many officers holding batons at the ready.
Wright was stopped just before 2 p.m. Sunday for having expired registration tags, the chief said. At Monday’s news conference, an angry audience member noted that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles was experiencing a two- to threemonth backlog because of the coronavirus pandemic. The chief said that after running Wright’s identification, an officer discovered that he had an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor and police tried to arrest him.