When Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer Kim Potter allegedly mistook her service weapon for a stun gun and fatally shot an unarmed Black motorist Sunday, it was at least the 16th such “weapons confusion” incident in the United States since 2001.
And the victim, Daunte Wright, was at least the fourth person to have died as a result, according to data compiled by the website FatalEncounters.org and a University of Colorado professor who tracks such cases.
These types of incidents are rare, experts say, although no government agency tracks the use of Taser-like devices nationwide so it’s impossible to say with certainty how many times it has occurred.
MINNEAPOLIS, April 14 The suburban Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a Black motorist during an encounter that began as a routine traffic stop, and the police chief who called the slaying an apparent accident, both resigned on Tuesday following two nights of civil unrest. The mayor of.
Who was Daunte Wright?
Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was driving with his girlfriend in a Minneapolis suburb on Sunday, April 11, when an officer pulled him over for an alleged traffic violation and discovered he had a warrant out for his arrest. Wright’s mother told reporters that her son called her as he was being pulled over, telling her that it was because “he had air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror.”
What happened when Minneapolis police pulled Wright over?
Chief Tim Gannon of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Minnesota said that an officer who has yet to be named shot Wright when he stepped back into his car as police were trying to detain him. Wright’s car then traveled for several blocks and struck another vehicle, after which the police and medical workers pronounced him dead at the scene. The woman in the car with him, believed to be Wright’s girlfriend, was also hurt in the crash, but her injuries were not life-threatening, according to p
Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth on the unrest in Minnesota following Daunte Wright shooting.
Local prosecutors in Minnesota on Wednesday are expected to charge former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter with second-degree manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, as civil unrest has persisted for three consecutive nights, with demonstrations spilling into Minneapolis.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput is expected to announce the second-degree manslaughter charge later Wednesday.
Orput did not immediately return a voicemail left by Fox News on Wednesday.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to The Associated Press.