Police officer involved shoot riot in Minnesota city
Protesters, law enforcement clash in Brooklyn Center, Minn., After a 20-year-old man was shot dead by police after a traffic stop. Maryland Fraternal Order of Police Clyde Boatwright and former NYPD detective Oscar Odom weigh in.
Minneapolis broke out in looting and riots late Sunday after an officer fatally shot a man during a traffic stop, just ten miles from where Derek Chauvin had George Floyd pinned to the sidewalk last May.
The Minnesota National Guard was activated to suppress what led to violent protests over the fatal officer-involved shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright earlier Sunday in the city of Brooklyn Center, located in Hennepin County on the Minneapolis border.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott issued a city-wide evening clock until Monday 6 p.m. CT. About 500 people gathered outside a police station in the city overnight and clashed with officers.
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“Our entire community is filled with grief following the shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old young man today. Our hearts go out to his family and all those in our community affected by this tragedy,” Elliott said in a statement. said. . ‘While we await additional information from the BCA [Bureau of Criminal Apprehension] leading the investigation, we continue to urge members of our community meeting to do so peacefully amid our calls for transparency and accountability. ‘
Elliott addressed those in the community ‘filled with grief’ in a statement published at 2am CT, saying the mayor would support ‘peaceful gatherings’. A press conference is scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m. CT at Brooklyn City City Hall to provide more information.
In a tweet, he said: “We want to make sure everyone is safe. Please be safe and please go home.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that he was “watching the situation closely” and “praying for Daunte Wright’s family while our state mourns another life of a black man taken by law enforcement.”
Brooklyn Center police did not immediately identify Wright or reveal his race, but some protesters who gathered near the scene waved flags and signs with the caption “Black Lives Matter.” In one street, written in multicolored chalk: “Justice for Daunte Wright.”
In a statement, Brooklyn Center police said officers stopped an individual shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday. After police determined that the driver had an outstanding warrant, police tried to arrest him. However, the driver got back into the vehicle and drove away. An officer shot at the vehicle and hit the driver. Police said the vehicle traveled several blocks before crashing into another vehicle.
Police will release the name of the person in the Hennepin County medical examination after a preliminary autopsy and family notice. A female passenger did not sustain life-threatening injuries.
Minnesota Public Safety Secretary John Harrington told a news conference how protesters gathered shortly after the shooting and the crash. Some jumped on top of police vehicles and confronted officers. Marchers also descended on the Brooklyn Center Police Department building where stones and other objects were thrown at officers, he said.
The protesters dispersed on Monday at 01:15. Harrington added that about 20 businesses at the city’s Shingle Creek shopping center were broken into. He said law enforcement agencies are coordinating to tame the unrest, and the National Guard has been activated.
The video, shared by journalist Andy Ngo, shows BLM protesters rioting over what he described as the police-related shooting of a suspected gang member.
Protesters marched to Brooklyn headquarters in Brooklyn Center near 67th and North Humboldt lanes Sunday night, where people pushed past police ribbons and confronted officers in riots, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The group of about 500 protesters were repeatedly ordered to disperse by officers, who then used tear gas, instantaneous points and rubber bullets on the crowd. The police headquarters was covered with graffiti and later climbed by protesters chanting Wright’s name.
National Guard troops arrived before midnight. The Brooklyn Center Walmart was targeted by looters who also destroyed a nearby Foot Locker, T Mobile and a menswear store in New York. Looting flooded north and south of Minneapolis late Sunday through Monday morning when stores in Uptown and along Lake Street were also broken into and emptied.
A police headquarters in another neighboring city of Brooklyn Park was “shot up” around 8pm on Sunday, Fox 9 Minneapolis reported. Several rounds were fired through the building’s glass doors with a few shots reaching the foyer. No injuries were reported.
The attack looks like what happened during the riots following Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, when the 3rd District of Minneapolis police burned down. Protesters at the time piled up rubbish in the building and set it on fire while chanting Floyd’s name.
Tensions are high in the region as the trial of Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged with Floyd’s death, continues until the third week Monday in Minneapolis. Harrington said more members of the National Guard would be deployed in the city of Minneapolis and in downtown Brooklyn.
Katie Wright, Daunte Wright’s mother, was walking with loved ones near the shooting scene in the 6300 block of Orchard Avenue in downtown Brooklyn, pleading for her son’s body to be removed from the street, the Star Tribune reported .
She said her son called her when he was pulled over, and she struggled to hear before the call ended. When she called back, she said his girlfriend told her Daunte Wright had been shot.
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Carolyn Hanson lives near the crash scene and told the newspaper she saw officers get the man out of the car and do CPR. Hanson said a passenger who got out was full of blood.
The Brooklyn Center Police Department said the Bureau of Criminal Detention should investigate. Brooklyn Center officials are wearing cameras worn on the body, and instrument cameras are thought to be activated during the incident, police said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.