POLICE FATALLY SHOOT BLACK MAN IN US, PROTESTS ERUPT
Daunte Wright was killed 16km from where George Floyd was killed last year
Protests erupted against police when an officer fatally shot a young Black man after stopping his vehicle for a traffic violation on Sunday about 16 kilometres from where George Floyd was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis last May.
As angry crowds swelled into the hundreds outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department building on Sunday night, officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and lobbed flash bangs at protesters and let off clouds of chemical irritants. The man killed by police was identified as Daunte Wright, 20. by Minnesota governor Tim Walz said that he was monitoring the unrest, as “our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”
A suburb of Minneapolis was under curfew early on Monday after police fatally shot a young Black man, sparking protests not far from where a former police officer was on trial for last year’s murder of George Floyd.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, northwest of the US city of Minneapolis, with police firing teargas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd.
By around midnight, the National Guard was on the scene and Brooklyn Center mayor Mike Elliott imposed a curfew from 1am on Monday until 6am. “We want to make sure everyone is safe,” the mayor tweeted. “Please be safe and please go home.”
The mother of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, told a crowd earlier on Sunday evening that he called her to say he had been pulled over by police, local media reported.
Katie Wright said she heard officers tell her son to put his phone down, and then one of the officers ended the call. Soon after, her son’s girlfriend told her he had been shot.
The Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension confirmed to AFP it was “investigating an officer-involved shooting incident” in Brooklyn Center but declined to identify the victim.
According to a statement from the Brooklyn Center police department, officers pulled over a driver for a traffic violation. When they discovered he had an outstanding warrant, they tried to take him into custody.
He got back into his car, and one of the officers fired their weapon, striking the driver, who died at the scene.
Police say both officers’ body cameras were recording during the incident. The state’s bureau of criminal apprehension said it was investigating the shooting.
The Minnesota branch of the
American Civil Liberties Union said another independent agency should investigate, and demanded the immediate release of any videos of the shooting. The group said it had “deep concerns that police here appear to have used dangling air fresheners as an excuse for making a pretextual stop, something police do all too often to target Black people”.
A female passenger in the car suffered “non-life threatening injuries” and was transported to a local hospital, said the statement, which did not identify the woman.
Police cruiser vandalised
Photos from the protest showed men stomping on the windshield of a police cruiser. Police fired rubber bullets to try to disperse the protesters, according to Star Tribune. After an hour, the police presence eased, and the crowd lit candles and wrote messages such as “Justice for Daunte Wright” in chalk on the street.
But clashes broke out again soon after as another group of several hundred protesters gathered outside the Brooklyn Center police headquarters and were met with teargas and flash bangs.
John Harrington, the state’s commissioner of public safety, reported “rocks and other objects thrown at the police department”. He said officers were sent to the scene and the crowd had mostly dispersed. About 20 businesses were looted at a local mall, he said. Harrington said more National Guard troops would be moved into the area on Monday, to deal with potential unrest.
Chauvin’s trial
The shooting comes amid the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is facing charges of manslaughter and murder over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May.
Floyd’s killing sparked months of protests in the United States against racism and police brutality and attracted international outrage.
Mayor Elliott called the shooting “tragic”, while Minnesota governor Tim Walz said the state “mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement”.