The controversial killing of Daunte Wright

​By M. Gonçalves

On April 11th, at around 2pm, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was driving across his hometown of Brooklyn Centre, Minnesota in his white Buick. During his journey, a police car had Daunte pull over for having expired registration, a situation which police officers certainly encounter countless times a day. Ordinarily, they would approach the driver and ask for their license and identification while analysing the situation and deciding whether to take the driver to the police precinct. However, in Wright's case, they remained in the scene.  
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Abiding by the officer's instructions, Daunte stepped out of the vehicle and presented proper documentation. As the police officers checked the young man’s license and identification, they arrested Wright for driving with expired documents. Two of the officers on duty stood around Daunte’s car as the third handcuffed him beside his wide-open door. The officer placing the handcuffs on Daunte looked away for a brief second and Daunte seized his opportunity to escape. 
 
As he had one hand on the steering wheel and one attempting to shut the door, one of the on-duty officers by the name of Kimberly Ann Porter cried “Taser! Taser!”, as she approached him. Standing by the wide-open door, Porter accidently reached for her firearm instead of her taser, a mistake that would prove fatal. Porter fired her gun towards Daunte’s abdomen. Minutes later, a situation that was supposed to simple and innocuous turned into the death of a young man while he was driving across his hometown. 


As law enforcement investigates the killing of Daunte Wright, Porter has resigned because of her costly mistake. Numerous protests have occurred since this fatal incident, people are claiming Porter discharged her firearm onto Daunte because she saw him as a threat due to the color of his skin. This has once again evoked Black Lives Matter movements.  


The “BLM” movement became well known worldwide last year after the deaths of two black men who weren’t threats to other civilians around them, yet the police felt the need to act on this violently, resulting in the death of George Floyd and Jacob Blake. Daunte’s death came a couple days before one of the police officers, Derek Chauvin, was convicted for the murder of George Floyd. People are now urging the police to hold accountable those officers responsible for the deaths of black people who weren’t threatening anyone else’s safety.