Protesters faced off with police for a third night Tuesday in Minnesota over the death of a young Black man shot by an officer, with more than 60 people arrested, law enforcement officials said.
Tensions have soared over the Sunday police shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, a community already on edge over the ongoing trial of an officer accused of killing another Black man, George Floyd, last year.
Riot police moved in to disperse a group of 800-1,000 demonstrators in Brooklyn Center.
Officers deployed stun grenades while protesters responded by throwing objects including water bottles and bricks, law enforcement officials said.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott has expressed sympathy for protesters, who he said were motivated by fear rather than lawlessness
“What I saw was young people, many of whom looked – all of them look like Daunte,” Elliott, who is Black, said Tuesday. “And I could feel their pain. I could feel their anger. I can feel their fear.”
Earlier in the day the families of Wright and Floyd came together to demand an end to police brutality and the killing of unarmed African Americans by white officers.
“The world is traumatized watching another African-American man being slain,” Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said of 20-year-old Wright, as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Wright’s relatives at an outdoor press event in driving snow.
A day earlier Philonise Floyd testified in the case against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer on trial for murder and manslaughter in the case of George Floyd, whose death last year shocked the nation.
“To the Wright family from the Floyd family, you all have our condolences,” Floyd said Tuesday as he consoled the latest African-American family devastated by the death of a loved one at the hands of police. “We’re here, and we will fight for justice for this family.”
Wright was shot dead during a traffic stop by a police officer who apparently confused her handgun with her Taser, in what the force later described as a horrible accident.
The officer who shot Wright resigned on Tuesday, as did Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon, who had told reporters earlier that the officer “had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr Wright with a single bullet.”
The families rejected the accident explanation, as several relatives and activists at the press event called for the officer to be arrested and jailed for her actions.
“A so-called mistake? A handgun for a Taser? It’s unacceptable,” Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams said.
“Just because you are the law doesn’t mean you’re above the law,” he added. “When is enough enough?”
Surrounded by relatives, Chyna Whitaker, the mother of Wright’s one-year-old son, and Wright’s own mother Katie Wright spoke emotionally about the last times they spoke with or saw Daunte.
“I’m just so messed up about it, because I feel like they stole my son’s dad from him,” Whitaker said.
This report contains material from AFP and Reuters.
Source: Newmax
