BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The police chief of a Minneapolis suburb said Monday the officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop on Sunday may have intended to use a Taser, not a firearm.
“It is my belief that the officer had their intention to deploy the Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,“ said Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon, adding that he believes this was an ”accidental discharge.” The officer, he said, has been placed on administrative leave.
The shooting of a Black man as the trial of an officer charged with murdering George Floyd transfixes the nation has ignited tensions in the Minneapolis area with protesters — yet again — taking to the streets for racial justice.
But residents and activists of this suburb north of Minneapolis quickly pushed back on police, calling for justice for Wright, who officials said was unarmed.
“Daunte Wright is yet another young Black man killed at the hands of those who have sworn to protect and serve all of us — not just the whitest among us,” Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the Wright family said. “What will it take for law enforcement to stop killing people of color? The growing number of Black men and women who have been killed or harmed by police is far too hefty a price for the equality we are seeking.”
Gannon played a video clip from the body camera of the police officer who fired the shot during a press conference Monday. The video showed police attempting to arrest Wright because of an outstanding warrant. Wright appeared to try to get into his car and drive away. What appeared to be a woman’s voice shouted “taser taser taser” before a gunshot was fired.
City officials took questions from a small number of reporters and community activists.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said he believes the officer, whose name has not been released, should be fired.
Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed Wright’s shooting.
“It is a reminder of the pain, the anger, the trauma, the exhaustion that many communities across the country have felt as we see these incidents continue to occur within just a few miles of where the tragic events happened just a year ago,” she said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Sunday tweeted that he was praying for Wright’s family “as our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”
In downtown Minneapolis on Monday, the third week of testimony in the Derek Chauvin began in a trial where the former officer is charged with murder and manslaughter.
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(Ganguli, a spectial correspondent, reported from Brooklyn Center and Lee from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.)
