On Monday afternoon, officials in Brooklyn Center released body camera footage of the fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright.
The body camera footage shows the officer approach Wright while one of her colleagues is attempting to cuff him. Wright manages to pull away and get back into the driver’s seat of his vehicle. The female officer whose bodycam footage is shown then shouts, “Taser!” and pulls out a gun. After firing the gun, Wright drives off and she says, “Holy sh*t! I just shot him!”
Here’s more from AP:
Police in a Minneapolis suburb where a Black man was fatally shot during a traffic stop say the officer who fired intended to use a Taser, not a handgun.
Police Chief Tim Gannon described the shooting as “an accidental discharge.”
The man identified by relatives as 20-year-old Daunte Wright died Sunday in Brooklyn Center, a city of about 30,000 people on the northwest border of Minneapolis. His death sparked violent protests, with officers in riot gear clashing with demonstrators into Monday morning.
The Minneapolis area was already on edge because of the trial of the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd’s death.
Police have released video of the somewhat graphic altercation, which begins at 1:24:
CONTENT WARNING
You can clearly hear the officer say ‘shit, I shot him’ after repeatedly yelling ‘taser’ to warn the other officers, suggesting she meant to tase Wright instead during the panicked situation.
But as tragic as this may have been given the accidental discharge, Wright tried to get away from cops while they were trying to handcuff him. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t resisted and fought the officers and allowed them to arrest him. He’d still be alive today.
