The police officer accused of shooting and killing Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb during a traffic stop over the weekend has resigned, the suburb’s chief of police has also resigned, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott announced Tuesday.
The resignation of officer Kim Potter and Brooklyn Center police Chief Tim Gannon comes after a second night of protests roiled the city, with hundreds of demonstrators expressing anger at Wright’s death.
The city’s police chief has said the officer who shot Wright — identified by state authorities as Potter — appeared to mistake her gun for her Taser.
“As I watched the video and listened to the officer’s commands, it is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser, but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” Gannon said. “This appears to me, from what I’ve viewed and the officer’s reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright.”
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Gannon said he has asked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate and present its findings, “independent of me,” to authorities and attorneys to review the case.
The district attorney for Hennepin County said the legal case will be handled by a different county to avoid an “appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to CNN.
An attorney for Wright’s family, Ben Crump, called the shooting “entirely preventable” and “inhumane.”
“As Minneapolis and the rest of the country continue to deal with the tragic killing of George Floyd, now we must also mourn the loss of this young man and father,” he told the news network.
Another of the family’s attorneys, Jeffrey Storms said on Tuesday that the chief’s explanation that the shooting appeared to be an accident “is by no means proper or enough.”
“There were a number of intentional events that led to (Daunte Wright) being dead, and we need to find out exactly why each one of those intentional events happened,” Storms said.
“Grabbing your sidearm that you’ve likely deployed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of times is an intentional act,” Storms said. “A sidearm feels different than a Taser. It looks different than a Taser. (It) requires different pressure in order to deploy it.”
Daunte Wright’s aunt, Naisha Wright, gave a similar argument to CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday night.
“You don’t mistake a stun gun from a gun. … If I made a mistake like that, I’ll be in a jail cell; they’ll be trying to put me under. That’s not fair,” Naisha Wright said.
Sunday’s killing of Wright, 20, is at least the third high-profile death of a Black man during a police encounter in the Minneapolis area, after the shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights and the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.
Brooklyn Center, MN, Mayor Mike Elliott announces the resignations of Kim Potter, the officer who killed Daunte Wright, and Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon. pic.twitter.com/oSWpfGiTa6
— The Recount (@therecount) April 13, 2021
