Protests, Looting follow Police Shooting in Suburban Minneapolis

A police shooting in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota has set off a fresh round of protests and riots nearly a year after the death of George Floyd. The local police department involved says the officer mistook a firearm for a taser.

Summary

For a second night in a row, protests and riots engulfed Brooklyn Center, Minnesota after a police officer fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright after mistaking a firearm for a taser weapon.

• The officer involved, 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department Kim Potter, has been placed on administrative leave while the police chief called Wright’s killing accidental.
• The county medical examiner ruled Wright’s death a homicide.
• Hundreds of protesters defied curfew orders and several dozen were arrested for looting and rioting.
• President Joe Biden urged the Minneapolis area to remain calm as an investigation into the shooting death of Daunte Wright continues, and said while there is justified “anger, pain, and trauma” in the Black community, it “does not justify violence.”

• CNN wrote an analysis arguing that the popular narrative, that Wright was pulled over for an air freshener hanging on his rearview mirror (which CNN then calls into question the very next paragraph), are part of laws for minor infractions that are used as “pretext for racially motivated traffic stops.”
• BBC’s coverage of the overnight unrest said protesters aimed their efforts at the Brooklyn Center police headquarters while “sporadic incidents of looting” resulted in the arrest of roughly 40 people.
• Coverage of the protests by The New York Times said police hoped to avoid the use of “chemical munitions” (tear gas and pepper spray) but were forced to when protestors began pelting them with objects.
• Vox wrote about the dangers of traffic stops for African Americans, quoting a University of Arkansas law professor as saying Black Americans “are taught to view stops as dangerous.”

• OANN’s report was a brief synopsis of the entire situation, detailing the police and National Guard response to protests and riots to Minn Gov Tim Walz’s public statements on Twitter and local Republican reaction to Walz saying “governor, your words fuel fire for protestors.”
• Newsmax focused their coverage on Walz’s warnings to those who would consider taking advantage of the unrest, saying those who seek to exploit this tragedy ‘will be arrested and you will be charged…It’s not debatable.”
• Reporting by The Daily Caller emphasized comments from Rep Rashida Tlaib who said Wright’s murder was not an accident and that policing in America is “inherently and intentionally racist.”
• RedState’s Kira Davis pointed out a live moment of CNN’s coverage of the protests in which a protestor laid into CNN reporter Sara Snider, accusing them (and all news media covering the story) of “mak[ing] things worse for the people on the ground.” 

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© Dallas Gerber, 2021