Cop Who Fatally Shot Daunte Wright Apparently Intended To Use Taser, Police Chief Says…

The fatal offi­cer-involved shoot­ing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright appears to have been an acci­dent, the Brooklyn Center Police Department says.

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said in a Monday news con­fer­ence that the offi­cer who shot and killed Wright, a Black man, dur­ing a traf­fic stop in Minnesota on Sunday appar­ent­ly meant to use their Taser but mis­tak­en­ly fired a bul­let, The New York Times reports.

“It is my belief that the offi­cer had the inten­tion to deploy their Taser, but instead shot Mr. Wright with a sin­gle bul­let,” Gannon said. “This appears to me, from what I viewed, and the offi­cer’s reac­tion and dis­tress imme­di­ate­ly after, that this was an acci­den­tal dis­charge that result­ed in a trag­ic death of Mr. Wright.”

Police also showed graph­ic body cam­era footage from the shoot­ing, in which the offi­cer can be heard shout­ing “Taser” and, after fir­ing her gun, say­ing, “Holy s — . I just shot him.”

Hundreds of demon­stra­tors gath­ered on Sunday night to protest the shoot­ing, which occurred in a sub­urb about 10 miles from where George Floyd was killed in 2020. Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott on Monday called for the offi­cer’s fir­ing, per the Times, vow­ing that “we will get to the bot­tom of this” and “do all that is with­in our pow­er to make sure that jus­tice is done for Daunte Wright.”