BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota – A third night of protests erupted in Minnesota on Tuesday after the Brooklyn Center agent, who fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright in a traffic stop, resigned as did the police chief.
After calling the meeting ‘illegal’ and ordering it to disperse, hundreds of protesters held out at the Brooklyn Center Police Station, which was surrounded with members of the National Guard and fencing.
Clashes followed not long after, echoing earlier nights when authorities used tear gas and other projectiles to disperse crowds. Dozens of people were also arrested during the demonstrations, many of them peacefully.
Earlier on Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for a second day of vigil to honor Wright, who was murdered on Sunday when, according to police, a 26-year-old veteran of the department accidentally shot him with her gun instead of her Taser during a traffic stop.
“It could have been me, it could have been my little brother here, it could have been one of my friends,” said 16-year-old Blejay Gboweay, resident of Brooklyn Center. “We’re marching here with everyone else, bringing unity and trying to be involved.”
Princess Marie Quia, 15, a resident of the Brooklyn Center, said, “It’s hard to empathize when you know someone on your street has died.”
“For what reason did they take a black life again?” she said before curfew. “How are we supposed to live and grow up in this place, knowing that next time I might be lying on the floor?”
The officer who murdered Wright, Kim Potter and Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon resigned Tuesday, but tensions remained high as night fell and curfews ended.
Police said agents pulled Wright for an expired license plate on his car Sunday afternoon, claiming that when they ran his name through their system, they discovered he had issued an arrest warrant. According to court documents obtained by BuzzFeed News, he had missed a lawsuit for two felony charges: carrying a gun without a license and running away from the police last June.
But while officers tried to arrest Wright, he tried to break free and get back into his car. Show the camera images of the body Potter warned Wright that she would bully him, but then she fatally shot him.
“They could have given him a ticket for that. But when it’s black people in America they use the most violence, and that has deadly consequences,” Benjamin Crump, a lawyer representing Wright’s family, said in a news report. conference.
Earlier in the day in an interview with Good morning AmericaWright’s father, Aubrey Wright, said he “cannot accept” the excuse that the fatally shooting of his son was a mistake.
Regardless of Potter’s intent, people in the Minneapolis area want them, and the police in general, to be held responsible for taking the lives of black people. At a memorial rally on Tuesday, speakers and organizers expressed frustration that a year after George Floyd was murdered by police, Wright lost his life and continues to hurt their community.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting, while the adjacent Washington County district attorney’s office will make decisions about whether or not to press charges.
Meanwhile, the greater Minneapolis area is waiting for real change. A 20-year-old who gave her name as Maddie told a memorial on Tuesday that she lives eight blocks from the site where Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is currently on trial for murder in death.
“I hate the routine this has become… we’ll post about it and then we’ll move on,” she said. “I hope we find a way to tap into this momentum and bring about real change.”