Mother of Daunte Wright says she was injured after police detained her for filming traffic stop
Brooklyn Center Police release bodycam footage from traffic stop
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The mother of Daunte Wright, a Black man from a suburb of Minneapolis who was fatally shot by a white officer last year, says she was injured after an officer from the same police department briefly detained her after she stopped on the side of the road to record a traffic stop arrest.
Katie Wright’s 20-year-old son was killed during a traffic stop by Brooklyn Center Police Department officer Kim Potter, who claimed to mistake her handgun for her Taser during the incident. She was convicted of first and second-degree manslaughter in a trial in December and sentenced to two years in prison.
Ms Wright said she pulled over on Highway 252 on Wednesday night when she noticed Brooklyn Center police had stopped a car during what officials called a “high-risk” stop related to a homicide investigation, according to a statement from the city.
“All I was doing was my civic duty to pull over and make sure that those babies got home safe to their families because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other families,” Ms Wright, said during a news briefing on 5 May outside Brooklyn Center police headquarters. “If you’re not OK with somebody recording you while you’re doing your job, then you do not need to be a police officer.”
Ms Wright claims that an officer injured her wrist during the interaction. Police body-mounted camera footage of the incident shows the officer pulling her from her car. Her wrist appeared to be wrapped in a bandage during Thursday’s briefing.
The footage, which runs less than two minutes, was released by the department “in an effort to promote public safety and dispel widespread rumor or unrest”, according to the agency.
A handcuffed person can be heard saying that they did not want to be filmed as police guide them into a squad car, according to the video.
The officer wearing the camera can be heard saying “she’s getting a ticket”, to which another officer replies “don’t worry about it” as the officer crosses the highway to meet Ms Wright, who is parked alongside the median on the other side of the highway, and ask her for her driver’s license.
“You’re going to give me your driver’s license or I’m going to take you to jail for obstruction,” the officer tells her.
Within seconds, the officer pulls her from the driver’s seat and takes her phone from her hands and places it on the roof of her car. The officer guides her to the median between both lanes.
“You know who I am, right? My name is Katie Wright, and you guys killed my son, and I’m going to videotape [the officers], and if you take me to jail, I will sue you,” she told the officers, according to the video.
The officer tells her he is going to send her a ticket as she walks back to her car, and the officer then walks back across the highway to his car.
Ms Wright also posted her footage from the incident, corroborated by police video.
“I don’t want a police officer like that patrolling our community. He escalated a situation that didn’t need to be escalated,” according to Ms Wright. “I’m a white woman. He chose to stand there and be that aggressive with me just recording.”