MINNEAPOLIS — Hundreds of protesters defied curfew Monday night to gather at the Brooklyn Center Police Department, seeking justice for a 20-year-old Black man fatally shot by a police officer.
Clashes between law enforcement and protesters escalated into the evening, with authorities firing multiple rounds of tear gas, along with rubber bullets and flash grenades. Protesters dispersed from areas hit by tear gas were quickly regrouping, and retaliating by throwing water bottles and launching fireworks. At a strip mall near the police station, looters broke into a Dollar Tree store.
Earlier in the day, police erected a fence and concrete barricades around the building's perimeter, and it was ringed by uniformed soldiers of the Minnesota National Guard and Minnesota State Patrol officers, who were ramping up their presence at potential hot spots throughout the metro at the direction of Gov. Tim Walz.
The governor instituted a 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka and Dakota counties. By shortly before 8 p.m., police outside their station began to warn demonstrators, who still numbered in the hundreds, that they were in violation of curfew. Officers began to move toward the fence in formation and issued orders to disperse.
Earlier Monday evening, at least 300 gathered at a dinnertime vigil for Daunte Wright, 20, at the site where he was shot in the chest a day earlier during a traffic stop. Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said the officer appeared to have fired her gun accidentally when intending to fire a Taser.
"I just need everyone to know that he was my life. He was my son," Wright's mother, Katie Wright, said at the vigil. "And I can never get that back. Because of a mistake? Because of an accident?"
Coming amid the high-profile criminal trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in George Floyd's death, Wright's death in the suburb directly north of Minneapolis ignited a clash late Sunday between demonstrators and law enforcement officers. There were also scattered reports of looting.
Walz and other local leaders urged peaceful protests while vowing consequences for those who damage property.
"You cannot honor the memory of George Floyd, you cannot honor the memory of Daunte Wright by wreaking havoc in the communities they called home," St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said at an afternoon briefing. Business owners across the metro scrambled to close early.
At the Brooklyn Center vigil, near the corner of 63rd Avenue and Orchard Avenue North, activists brought in the large wooden fist that for much of the past year sat at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where Floyd was killed last May. A metal replica now stands where the original once did.
"Right now, this community, this city, this state, our nation, our country, our world is broken," said the Rev. Jeanette Rupert, who also works as an ICU nurse and said she came to speak at the vigil before her night shift. "We have had the knees on our neck for so long."
Several pastors prayed for the Wright family, and trumpet player Butchy Austin, who lives near George Floyd Square, ended the vigil with "Amazing Grace." In addition to Wright's mother, his brother and grandfather addressed the crowd.
The service broke up around the time the curfew started, with organizers urging participants to head home.
At the police station, demonstrators chanted and banged on drums in a light rain as night fell. Signs read "Murder, Murder, Murder" and "Will my brother be next?"
That one belonged to Taylor Larsen, a 21-year-old who said she lived just down the street from the Police Department.
"It's just really disheartening. It's hard on all of us, it's hard on this community," Larsen said. "We're still trying to get through George Floyd."
Both Carter and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey declared states of emergency in their cities, prohibiting travel on public streets and other public places, with few exceptions. Emergency responders and the media are exempt from the curfew, as are those traveling directly to and from work, seeking emergency care, fleeing dangerous circumstances or experiencing homelessness.
Those traveling to and from religious services were also exempt from the curfew, an exception clarified after the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement condemning officials for preventing prayer gatherings on the first night of Ramadan.
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(Star Tribune staff writers Liz Sawyer and Andy Mannix contributed to this story.)
