Brooklyn Center mayor says city still determining what actions to take against officer who shot Wright cnn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cnn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Jo Ciavaglia
USA TODAY Network
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 University of Colorado professor Paul Taylor, 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.
MN Police Chief: Officer Mistakenly Fired Handgun Instead Of Taser | NewsRadio 740 KTRH iheart.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from iheart.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images
Protests spread across the country Monday night after police officials in Brooklyn Center, Minn., said they believed that the officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright had intended to use her Taser but accidentally fired her handgun instead.
Even as a cold drizzle fell in Minnesota, hundreds turned out for a memorial protest at the police department in Brooklyn Center, a few miles from the scene of Wright s death, despite a 7 p.m. curfew that had been called across much of the Twin Cities area.
Demonstrators were met with lines of police officers in riot gear and nightsticks. Police declared an unlawful assembly at nightfall, eventually turning to flash-bang grenades, tear gas and foam rounds to clear the crowd. MPR News also reported damage and looting at a strip mall across the street from the police station. About 40 people were arrested, authorities said, many of whom were cited with misdemeanor curfew violations.
Furious over the fatal shooting of a Black man by a police officer during a traffic stop, demonstrators gathered Monday night to protest outside the police department of a Minneapolis suburb for a second night in a row.