Wright killing: claim gun drawn by mistake
MINNEAPOLIS: A suburban Minneapolis police officer apparently drew her gun by mistake, instead of her Taser, when she fatally shot a young black man during a traffic stop, a police chief said yesterday, hours before a second night of unrest sparked by the killing.
Family members of the slain motorist, Daunte Wright (20), rejected an accident was to blame for Monday’s shooting in Brooklyn Centre, Minnesota, Wright’s brother denouncing the police as ‘‘trigger happy’’.
The shooting roiled a region already on edge, as last year’s killing of George Floyd, a black man who died with his neck pinned to a Minneapolis street under a white policeman’s knee, was being recounted in the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin, charged with his murder.
Wright was killed just 10 miles from where Floyd lost his life, unleashing nationwide protests against racial injustice in the US law enforcement system.
Brooklyn Centre police chief Tim Gannon said yesterday Wright was pulled over for an expired vehicle registration and the shooting appeared unintentional, judging from his review of police video of the incident.
‘‘This appears to me, from what I viewed and the officers’ reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr Wright,’’ Gannon said.
The Hennepin County medical examiner yesterday ruled the death a homicide, confirming in an autopsy that Wright was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest.
The shooting immediately ignited a night of street skirmishes between police and protesters in Brooklyn Centre, local news media reporting looting and burglaries of about 20 nearby businesses.
Disturbances flared anew yesterday, as hundreds of protesters defying a curfew ordered by Governor Tim Walz clashed with law enforcement as darkness fell outside police headquarters in Brooklyn Centre.
A crowd surged against a fence, hurling projectiles and lighting fireworks, as police responded by firing tear gas and nonlethal plastic rounds.
Police reported 40 arrests and three officers suffered minor injuries.
During a memorial vigil yesterday at the spot where Wright was killed, his halfbrother, Dallas Wright, told the crowd his brother ‘‘lost his life because they [the police] were trigger happy’’, while his mother Katie Wright said her heart was ‘‘broken in a thousand pieces’’.