Separating Facts and lies in Daunte Wright’s Death

(Ron Knecht) – Daunte Wright, 20, the Black father of a two-year old boy, was shot and killed in a police traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, MN Sunday.  Kimberly Potter, 48, the White officer who shot him and a 26-year veteran of the local police force, said the shooting was an accident, and she has resigned from the force.

After the stop for an expired license plate, officers learned Wright had outstanding warrants, including carrying a pistol without a permit, and they started to take him into custody.  Police body-camera videos of the stop show Wright physically resisted arrest and sought to escape.  Potter drew an arm from her side and at least four times threatened to tase him.

When she shot, it was her side arm, not taser, in her hand and she appeared shocked at the mistake.  He died at the scene.

Wright’s mother said her son was an “amazing loving kid” with “a big heart.”  She added, “He just had his whole life taken away from him.  We just had our hearts pulled out of our chests. He was my baby.”

Wright’s relatives said he was a good-natured father who worked multiple jobs to support his son.  “My brother lost his life because they were trigger-happy,” claimed Dallas Wright, his older half-brother.

“I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,” said Potter in her resignation letter.  Local officials have charged her with second degree manslaughter.

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot, also Black, said Monday Potter should lose her job and said Tuesday the city was working through the process of firing her.  He also said on national television he believes officers should not be armed when making traffic stops.

Data and videos have shown that traffic stops and other police actions, can be very dangerous, leading to deaths of officers as often or more than to the deaths of Black civilians by White cops.

Police Chief Tim Gannon said he thought the shooting was an accident, but the video should determine whether Potter should be returned to the force.  He also resigned.  The City Manager was fired for saying Potter should receive due process, which is guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Mother Wright’s grief is something legitimate with which we completely sympathize.  By all accounts, she has confined her comments to a mother’s grief and has not made accusatory statements. Dallas Wright’s statement includes an unfounded accusation, forgivable in context.

On national television, the mayor said, “In this country, if you’re black and you get pulled over by the police, you have a very much higher chance of being dead just because you’re black, and just because you’re encountering police.”  He added, “We’ve seen this far too many times where a young black man or woman is pulled over by police or encounters police and they end up dead. People protesting are asking when will this stop.”

The first statement makes him a hate-filled lying racist and unfit to be mayor.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said it had “deep concerns that police here appear to have used dangling air fresheners as an excuse for making a pretextual stop, something police do all too often to target Black people.  …  While we are waiting to learn more, we must reiterate that police violence and killings of people of color must end, as must the over-policing and racial profiling that are endemic to our white supremacist system of policing.”

This is the typical ACLU’s hate-driven racist pack of lies and disregard for the facts.  It was reported by MSNBC, which took great pains to avoid reporting the weapons arrest by calling it a “gross misdemeanor warrant.”  All major mainstream media outlets, except FOX and the Epoch Times, went to similar lengths to make their stories sympathetic to Wright’s actions and accusatory of racism.

They and the Antifa, Black Lives Matter and other rioters, looters and vandals in the streets of various cities this week, and all their apologists are similarly racist hate-filled liars.

By

Ron Knecht