A police officer who shot a black man in Minneapolis, prompting another wave of protests and looting in a city already on a knife edge over racial inequality, has said that she thought that she was firing her Taser and not her handgun.
Video of the incident on Sunday afternoon shows officers approaching the driver’s side of a white car. A man whose face is obscured gets out of the car and appears to co-operate as an officer tries to handcuff him.
However, as the officer is distracted by something the man — identified later as Daunte Wright, aged 20 — wrestles himself free and gets back in the car. He is then shot but manages to drive away. Off-camera a woman can be heard shouting: “Oh shit, I think I shot him.”
Late last night, state officials identified the officer as Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the police department of Brooklyn Center, a suburb in the northeast area of Minneapolis.
Hundreds gathered outside the Brooklyn Center police station in violation of a curfew for a second night of violent protests, at which police fired tear gas and flash grenades. With tensions high, the suburb’s mayor, Mike Elliott, appeared on television saying: “We want people to go home.” About 40 people were arrested.
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Tim Gannon, the Brooklyn Center police chief, said that the female officer had meant to pull out her Taser but instead grabbed her handgun. It was “an accidental discharge that resulted in the death of Mr Wright”, Gannon said, adding that the officer was receiving counselling. Mike Elliott, the mayor, said that he wanted the officer to be dismissed.
The car, with Wright’s body inside, was found crashed a few streets away, ten miles from where George Floyd died last year when a police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. The trial of Derek Chauvin, the policeman accused of murdering Floyd, entered its third week yesterday.
The court heard emotional testimony from Floyd’s younger brother, Philonise, who broke down as he described his sibling’s relationship with their late mother, calling him a “big mama’s boy”.
Speaking about the Wright case, President Biden called for calm last night. “The question is whether it was an accident or intentional? That remains to be determined,” he said, adding that there was “absolutely no justification for violence”.
Later, he tweeted: “Today I’m thinking about Daunte Wright and his family — and the pain, anger and trauma that black America experiences every day.” He also acknowledged the need to “rebuild trust and ensure accountability”.
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Wright’s family and peaceful protesters gathered soon after the incident on Sunday. Katie Wright, his mother, told the Minneapolis newspaper Star Tribune: “He got out of the car, and his girlfriend said they shot him. He got back in the car, and he drove away and crashed and now he’s dead on the ground. Nobody will tell us anything. Nobody will talk to us. I said please take my son off the ground.”
She said that her son had phoned her when he was getting pulled over, and she heard scuffling before the call ended. “He said they pulled him over because he had air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror.” When she called back, she said his girlfriend told her that she and Daunte had both been shot. Her injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.
Court records show that Wright was wanted by police for possessing a gun without a permit.
As news of the shooting spread on Sunday night, more protesters arrived, waving Black Lives Matter flags. Others walked peacefully with their hands held up. By midnight the protests had become violent, with some people jumping on top of police cars and confronting officers, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas. Other vehicles were set alight.
Marchers descended on the Brooklyn Center police station, where a line of officers confronted a crowd who threw rocks and bags of rubbish. The Minnesota national guard was deployed and a curfew was imposed until 6am yesterday, with schools ordered to close for the day.
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Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, tweeted that he was praying for Wright’s family “as our state mourns another life of a black man taken by law enforcement”. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said: “We were incredibly saddened to hear about the loss of life at the hands of the law enforcement in Minnesota yesterday.”
