Chief: Officer meant to use taser, not shoot Black man
Body-cam footage of Sunday’s shooting in Minnesota released
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – Police in Minnesota on Monday released footage from the body-worn camera of the officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old Black man, and the police chief said he believed the officer intended to fire a stun gun during the incident.
Daunte Wright, 20, died after the traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on Sunday.
Footage from the incident released during a new conference shows two other officers approaching Wright’s car and the officer who fired the shot standing behind them.
As the officer on the driver side of the vehicle begins to handcuff Wright, a struggle ensues, and Wright appears to reenter the driver side of the car. The officer is heard shouting, “Taser” before she shoots Wright.
Callander said first responder suicides outpaced line-of-duty deaths across the country. “We have to do things different,” she said.
A paper commissioned by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation in Boston, said that in 2017 there were at least 103 firefighter suicides and 140 police officer suicides nationally, while 93 firefighters and 129 police officers died in the line of duty.
The study also found that PTSD and depression rates among firefighters and police officers are as much as five times higher than the rates within the civilian population.
In Columbus, two firefighters have killed themselves in the past two years, Gerold said.
Hughes said he didn’t know if there were police officer suicides in the past year or two.
“Our goal is we don’t want that to happen here,” he said.
Hughes said he has gone through bouts of depression in past years. “I paid cash for counseling,” he said, because he didn’t want anyone to find out.
In the past year, firefighters and police have had to deal with rushing to scenes while the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, and during racial justice protests that began after the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Gerold said firefighters were busy during the winter months, trying to deal with traumatic experiences at work while managing things at home.
Kate Pishotti, deputy chief of staff for Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther, said she started talking about the idea with others about three years ago when she was a deputy director in public safety.
“The more I talked about it, I realized there was so much room and opportunity to help. I called over to the mayor’s office at the time, and they said ‘Absolutely,’ ” she said.
Keith Ferrell, president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, which represents Columbus police officers, said he wasn’t aware of the plan, but thinks such a center will help.
“The sheer amount of crime we’re seeing is troubling to officers,” he said.
“We’re trained to really put things aside and do our job,” Ferrell said. “At some point, there’s no more room to put it aside.”
Steven Stein, the president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 67, which represents Columbus firefighters and medics, said such a center will help.
“It’s acknowledging the reality of stress,” said Stein, who added that there is an unprecedented demand for service.
“Workloads have doubled. We do not have more firefighters on the streets,” he said. “There are twice as many overdoses, twice as many shootings, twice as many dead kids that guys are being exposed to. It’s not slowing down.”
The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation only covers treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for first responders if it could be tied to physical injuries.
Stein mentioned a 2019 proposal in the bureau’s budget that would have expanded PTSD coverage, but the Ohio Senate stripped it out. mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik