Officer near Minneapolis kills motorist, and a crowd confronts the police

A police officer in Minnesota fatally shot a motorist Sunday in the city of Brooklyn Center, about 10 miles north of Minneapolis where a police officer is on trial and charged in the death of George Floyd last year, officials and witnesses said.

By late Sunday, police officers in body armour and helmets formed a protective line around the Brooklyn Centre Police Department Headquarters, as a large crowd of protesters gathered. Just before 10 pm police declared the gathering unlawful, ordered people to disperse, and appeared to have released a gas irritant and other devices in an attempt to disperse them.

The scene had been largely nonviolent, though hours earlier, a crowd that gathered near the scene where the driver died included some people who jumped on police vehicles and broke their windows, according to video posted on Facebook. People chanted “Black Lives They Matter Here,” and “Hands up, don’t shoot,” outside the police building as the police released gas to disperse the crowd.

Just before 2 pm, officers pulled over a driver for a traffic violation and determined that the driver had an outstanding warrant, the Brooklyn Centre Police Department said in a statement. Officers tried to arrest the driver but he “re-entered the vehicle,” police said.

“One officer discharged their firearm, striking the driver,” the statement said. “The vehicle then travelled several blocks before striking another vehicle.”

The driver died at the scene of the crash in a residential neighbourhood, police said. Police also said they believed body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras “were activated” during the episode.

A woman who came to the scene of the crash said she was the victim’s mother. She identified her son as Daunte Wright, 20, and said he had called her when the police pulled him over.

Wright was in a vehicle his family had just given him two weeks ago, and was driving with his girlfriend, she said.

“He called me at about 1:40, said he was getting pulled over by the police,” the woman told reporters at the scene, according to a Facebook Live video. “He said they pulled him over because he had air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror.”

Wright also said the police had questions about the vehicle insurance, she said.

“I said when the police officer comes back to the window, put him on the phone and I will give him the insurance information,” she said. “Then I heard the police officer come to the window and say, ‘Put the phone down and get out of the car.’ And Daunte said why. He said, ‘We’ll explain to you when you get out of the car.’ ”

The woman said she heard her son either drop the phone, or put the phone on the dashboard and then “I heard scuffling and I heard the police officer say, ‘Daunte, don’t run’ and then the officer said, ‘put the phone down’ and hung it up.”

The woman said she called her son’s phone back and that Wright’s girlfriend answered. The girlfriend told her that Wright had been shot, she said. The girlfriend was not injured, according to police.

People, including Wright’s relatives, gathered at the scene. While some people were yelling at officers and demanding answers, Wright’s family members urged people to be nonviolent.

“We want justice for Daunte,” the woman who identified herself as Wright’s mother said. “We don’t want it to be about all this violence,”

She also said she wanted her son’s body to be taken care of.

“I asked them to please take my son off the ground,” she said. “He’s been there since 1:47 this afternoon.”

A Brooklyn Centre police officer told people at the scene that the victim’s body could not be moved until members of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a division of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, arrived and investigated, according to a Facebook Live video.

The bureau said on Twitter that agents were en route to the scene of what it described as “an officer involved shooting.” The Brooklyn Centre police said in its statement that it had asked the bureau to conduct an independent investigation of the encounter.

As a crowd of activists and neighbours chanted and mourned around 9 pm, Wright’s relatives and friends sat on a curb a block away, holding each other tightly as they cried into each other’s arms. A group of supporters diverted traffic away from the protest and the mourners. Near where Wright died was a chalk mural in the street demanding “Justice for Daunte Wright,” and a single burning candle.

Wynfred Russell, a City Council member in neighboring Brooklyn Park, said in an interview Sunday night that his community and Brooklyn Center have a large percentage of Black residents who are on edge over policing.

“So you do have a lot of raw nerves here,” Russell said.

The incident in Brooklyn Center unfolded against the backdrop of the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year. That episode, captured on video by witnesses, helped touch off a summer of protests around the country against police brutality.

Chauvin was on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck, a move that Chief Medaria Arradondo of the Minneapolis Police Department said “absolutely” violated the department’s policies during an arrest.

“Once Mr Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalise that, that should have stopped,” Arradondo said Monday.

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