At a press conference Tuesday, Family members of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man killed Sunday in Minnesota, called for prosecution of the officer who shot him.
“They murdered my nephew. She killed my nephew,” Wright’s aunt, Naisha Wright, said of Kimberly Potter, the 26-year veteran of Brooklyn Center Police Department who shot the 20-year-old. “Hold her accountable? Hold her higher than accountable,” she said.
Potter and Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon resigned Tuesday. “Put her in jail, like they would do any one of us,” Naisha Wright said after being informed of Potter’s resignation.
Wright’s family was joined Tuesday by members of George Floyd’s family outside of the Hennepin County Government Center, which is currently hosting the murder trial for Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed Floyd last year.
Through tears, Daunte Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, described a phone call with her son in the minutes before his death. The call ended as Daunte struggled with police, she said. Then she called back via FaceTime and a woman who was in the car with her son answered.
“She was crying and screaming and she said that they shot him,” Wright said. “She pointed the phone toward the driver’s seat and my son was laying there unresponsive. That was the last time I saw my son. That’s the last time I heard from my son.”
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump and local lawyer Jeff Storms were also at the press conference. Storms called into question the claim, made by Chief Gannon Monday, that Potter accidentally fired her weapon at Wright.
“It’s not an accident to take your gun out of the holster,” he said. “It’s not an accident to point your gun. It's not an accident to ignore the fact that what you're holding doesn’t weigh the same amount as the Taser that you’ve used hundreds of times. Don’t tell us it’s an accident because it undermines the tragic loss of life that this family has experienced.”
Body camera footage of the traffic stop showed two officers struggling with Wright as he attempted to get back into his car. “I’ll Tase you! I’ll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!” Potter can be heard shouting before shooting Wright. After firing her weapon, she said “Holy (expletive)! I shot him.”
Chief Gannon said Monday that officers are trained with their gun on their dominant side — the right for right-handed officers, left for left-handed — and Taser on their weak side.
On ABC”s "Good Morning America” Tuesday, Wright’s father said he does not accept that Potter made a mistake.
"I lost my son, he's never coming back," Aubrey Wright said. "I can't accept that — a mistake, that doesn't even sound right. This officer has been on the force for 26 years. I can't accept that."
Police officials also said Wright was stopped over expired registration tags. Crump took issue with that during the press conference Tuesday, claiming that the pandemic has slowed the efforts of Minnesotans to update their tags. “But I guess when you’re driving while Black, people sometimes forget memos and initiatives about the realities of life,” he said.
Wright’s death launched protests in Brooklyn Center and in nearby Minneapolis on Sunday. Gov. Tim Walz responded to the unrest by ordering curfews for four counties, including those where Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis are located.
On Monday night, protesters remained in the streets past the curfew and police responded with flash-bang grenades and gas canisters. Walz said Tuesday that there will no state mandate curfew that night, though local officials may choose to put one in place.