The Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police chief and the officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year old Black man who struggled with police after a traffic stop, have both resigned, the city’s mayor told a briefing on Tuesday.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said the resignations came after the city council passed a resolution to dismiss both the chief, Tim Gannon, and the officer who shot Wright, Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the police force.
“I’m hoping this will bring some calm to the community,” the mayor said. “We want to send a message to the community that we are taking this situation seriously.”
Wright was shot on Sunday after being pulled over for what police said was an expired car registration. Officers then discovered there was a warrant out for his arrest, and an officer accidentally drew her pistol instead of her Taser during a struggle with Wright, Gannon said on Monday.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for a “full and transparent investigation” of the shooting.
Wright’s death ignited two consecutive nights of unrest in Brooklyn Center. Hundreds of protesters clashed with law enforcement officers outside the city’s police headquarters on Monday in defiance of a curfew ordered by Governor Tim Walz.
The region had already been on edge for weeks with the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, taking place just a few miles away from where the shooting of Wright occurred.
Wright’s relatives have described him as a kind man who liked basketball and worked multiple jobs to support his son.
“My brother lost his life because they were trigger-happy,” his older half-sibling, Dallas Wright, said during a memorial vigil on Monday evening at the spot where he was killed.
“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces… I miss him so much, and it’s only been a day,” his mother, Katie Wright, said at the vigil. “He was my life, he was my son and I can never get that back. Because of a mistake? Because of an accident?”
