Photo coutesy of Katie Wright, mother of victim Daunte Wright
By MOHAMED IBRAHIM
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) — A Black man died after being shot by police during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb, sparking violent protests that lasted into Monday as officers in riot gear clashed with demonstrators and the man’s mother called for calm.
The man was identified by family as 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who died Sunday in a metropolitan area that was already on edge because of the trial of the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd’s death. The judge in that case refused Monday to sequester the jury after a defense attorney argued that the panel could be influenced by the prospect of what might happen as a result of their verdict.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that he was praying for Wright’s family “as our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”
Speaking before the unrest, Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, urged protesters to stay peaceful and focused on the loss of her son.
“All the violence, if it keeps going, it’s only going to be about the violence. We need it to be about why my son got shot for no reason,” she said to a crowd near the shooting scene in Brooklyn Center, a city of about 30,000 people on the northwest border of Minneapolis. “We need to make sure it’s about him and not about smashing police cars, because that’s not going to bring my son back.”
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