Staff Reporter : Hundreds of protesters clashed with Minneapolis police after the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old Black man at a traffic stop.
Daunte Wright, 20, was shot on Sunday afternoon after being stopped for a traffic violation.
Police have not yet confirmed his identity, but Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott and members of the Wright family named him as the man who was shot.
The protests prompted the National Guard to be deployed and a curfew to be imposed. Around 20 businesses were broken into during the unrest, one local official said, while the Minneapolis Star Tribune said some had been “completely destroyed.”
This incident flared tensions in the city, where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is being tried for the murder of George Floyd. Floyd’s death in May 2020 was the driving force behind the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the nation.
Brooklyn Center — where Wright was shot on Sunday afternoon — is a half-hour drive from where Chauvin’s trial is underway.
Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, said that her son was killed by a police officer after being pulled over for displaying an air freshener in his rearview mirror.
She pleaded in a video posted on Twitter for people to come forth with more information on the case, and for the authorities to move her son’s body off the street.
“All he did was have an air freshener in the car and they told him to get out of the car. He got out of the car, and his girlfriend said they shot him,” Katie Wright said.
“Now he’s dead on the ground since 1.47 pm. Nobody will tell us anything,” she said. “Nobody will talk to us. I said please take my son off the ground.”
In a video posted on Twitter later that night, Elliott, the Brooklyn Center mayor, paid tribute to Wright, and urged calm.
“Our entire community is filled with grief following today’s officer-involved shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old young man. Our hearts are with his family, and with all those in our community impacted by this tragedy,” he said.
“While we await additional information from the BCA who is leading the investigation, we continue to ask that members of our community gathering do so peacefully, amid our calls for transparency and accountability.”
Some have pointed to a rarely-enforced traffic law that makes it illegal to hang anything from one’s rearview mirror that may obstruct vision — anything from an air freshener to a keychain.
The Washington Post spoke to Aubrey Wright, 42, Daunte’s father, who said that his son was heading to the car wash in his new vehicle. He heard that his son was shot when he received a call from his wife.
Wright told the Post: “She was screaming over the phone. She was saying, ‘Daunte was shot!'”
ABC News reported that a witness, Carolyn Hanson, saw police officers drag Wright out of the vehicle to perform CPR on him. Hanson also told ABC that she saw another passenger get out of the car “covered in blood.”
According the Minneapolis Star Tribune, crowds gathered near Brooklyn Center in the hours following the incident, with officers clad in riot gear pushing back against protesters.
The Star Tribune reported that around 500 people headed to the Brooklyn Center police headquarters at 9:30pm — around 7 hours after Wright’s death — pushing past police tape and clashing with officers clad in riot gear.
The windshields of two squad cars were smashed during the clash. Tear gas, stun grenades, and non-lethal rounds were also fired to disperse the crowd.
Troops from the National Guard were sent in around seven to eight hours after the protests on Sunday began. At least three trucks and multiple squads were seen setting up at a Walmart near Brooklyn Center at around 3 a.m.
At about 11.30 p.m. police had declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and said that anyone who remained in the area, including journalists, would be arrested, reported Minneapolis Public Radio.
Elliott, the Brooklyn Center mayor, imposed a curfew for the town from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.
He said that officials would provide an update at 11 a.m. Monday.
In the wake of the killing, protests began to spill over into other cities, with small groups of protesters also marching in downtown Portland, Oregon.
A statement by the Brooklyn Center police department did not identify Wright, but said that a man with an “outstanding warrant” was stopped for a traffic violation.
According to the statement, Wright was outside his car and then “re-entered the vehicle” when an officer shot him.
“The vehicle traveled several blocks before striking another vehicle. Officers in pursuit and responding medical personnel attempted life-saving measures, but the person died at the scene,” said the statement.
It said that a female passenger was brought to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The police department said that body and dash cameras were switched on during the incident and that an independent investigation into the case had been opened.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz said on Twitter on Sunday night that he was “closely monitoring the situation in Brooklyn Center.”
“Gwen and I are praying for Daunte Wright’s family as our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement,” Walz tweeted.
John Harrington, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said that during the protest at the Brooklyn Center about 20 businesses had been broken in to.
“You will see a robust assortment of National Guard, state and local police departments working together over the next two or three days as we once again prepare for the trial, and also are prepared for any further civil unrest that may come from the Brooklyn Center officer-involved shooting,” he said.
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