Minnesota Police Murder Daunte Wright and Brutalize Protesters During Trial for the cop that Murdered George Floyd.
If the state can set curfews, make protests against state-backed violence illegal, then enforce that curfew with more violence then people don’t actually have free speech rights in the United States.
As the trial for the cop who murdered George Floyd last year in Minneapolis is taking place, another black man, Daunte Wright, was shot and killed in the state of Minnesota by a Brooklyn Center Police officer during a traffic stop last Sunday. Although the state initiated a set of reforms for law enforcement in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, these reforms failed to save the life of Daunte Wright and activists say nowhere near enough has been done to change the authoritarian and racist structure of American policing.
According to the cops, Wright was initially pulled over for “having an expired registration on the vehicle”. However, during a press conference on Monday Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon was questioned about whether or not his department was aware of the fact there was a “two-to-three month backlog” at the DMV. Gannon said that his department was aware of the DMV backlog, but it looks like he never made any recommendations to his staff to be mindful that there’s a pandemic going on and that they shouldn’t pull people over for registration issues, particularly because there is a significant backlog at the DMV.
The unfortunate reality is that Daunte Wright was pulled over and murdered by police for driving while black. According to numerous studies, relative to their share of the population black drivers are about 20% more likely to be pulled over by police than white drivers. These studies also uncovered the fact that “once stopped, black drivers were searched about 1.5 to 2 times as often as white drivers” even though they were found to be “less likely to be carrying drugs, guns, or other illegal contraband compared to their white peers.”
Additional studies prove the unfortunate fact that black people in the United States are more than three times as likely to be killed during an encounter with the police than white people are. People who attempt to deny the existence of systemic racism within law enforcement always bring up the fact that white people are killed by the police than black people. What they don’t understand is that it’s obvious that more white people will be killed by police because white people make up 76% of the population, while black people make up just 13% of the population. Whether it’s dying of heart disease, falling off a roof, or being killed by a cop, white people will make up the majority of deaths when it comes down to sheer numbers because they make up a majority of the population. However, black people make up just 13% of the population, and when you account for the difference in the share of the populations between the two races it exposes the reality that black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.
Minnesota was already prepared for unrest in the wake of the trial for the cop who murdered George Floyd, the recent killing of Daunte Wright at the hands of Brooklyn Center Police has only fueled more public outrage. Protests in Brooklyn Center in response to the killing of Daunte Wright have been happening every day since he was killed on Sunday. The state has responded to protests by deploying the National Guard and sending militarized riot cops to arrest protesters and journalists after an arbitrary curfew that’s unilaterally set by the police and imposed with brute force.
Unilaterally deciding that protesting is illegal, brutalizing protesters, and arresting journalists are actions that you’d expect from police in a dictatorship, but not in the United States where the constitution is supposed to guarantee the public rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Thanks to the dedicated reporting from independent news outlet Status Coup and its cameraman, Jon Farina, the public can watch the police carry out these crimes in real-time.
In a video taken by Status Coup cameraman, Jon Farina, during protests in Brooklyn Center last night you can hear the police declare the protest an “unlawful assembly” and threaten to arrest protesters and media ahead of their arbitrarily imposed curfew. In another video, you can see police threatening to slash people’s tires so they can be arrested for peacefully protesting against police brutality. Another video taken by a local Minneapolis photojournalist showed riot cops indiscriminately shooting tear gas, flashbangs, and rubber bullets from armored vehicles behind a barricade into a crowd of protesters with umbrellas. The entire time this was going on you could hear the police repeating a message over a loudspeaker telling protesters to comply with “peace officers” or else they’d be arrested.
You know you’re living in a neoliberal police state when you hear the cops calling themselves “peace officers” over a loudspeaker while they brutalize people for protesting against police brutality. Also, if the state can set artificial curfews and make protests against state-backed violence illegal and then enforce that curfew with more violence then people don’t actually have the right to freedom of speech and assembly in the United States.
This response by the police proves that they’ve learned nothing during this year of protests that were initiated by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the same police department that murdered Daunte Wright on Sunday. The police reforms implemented in Minnesota since the murder of George Floyd failed to save the life of Daunte Wright, and the public says that nowhere near enough has been done to change the authoritarian and racist structure of American policing.
The cop who killed Daunte Wright claimed that she accidentally shot him with her gun while she was trying to fire her taser, but I’ll just leave this photo here and you can decide if that’s an excuse that you can believe for yourself.
Also, officers’ guns are located on their right side while tasers are located on their left side. Given the fact that she was a 26-year veteran on the departments’ staff who also happened to be the President of the local police union, I don’t buy her excuse for a second.
According to ABC News, Kim Potter, the cop who killed Duante Wright was arrested on Wednesday morning and charged with second-degree manslaughter after she resigned from her position with the department on Tuesday. The chief of police Tim Gannon also stepped down from his position shortly thereafter. Potter posted bond and was released from jail by Wednesday evening, according to jail records obtained by ABC News.
Even though this cop is the one who’s the murderer, she’s been allowed to post bond and buy her way out of jail for the time being while her former colleagues arrest and brutalize people for protesting against what seems to be a never-ending line of police brutality and state-backed repression. The police continue to extrajudicially kill civilians and then criminalize dissent and declare war on anyone who chooses to fight back against their violence.
To make matters even worse, President Biden has used harsher language against people protesting against police brutality than he’s used against the police doing the actual brutality. During a meeting with the press on Monday, Biden was asked about the situation in Brooklyn Center and provided cover for the cop who murdered Daunte Wright saying, “Was it an accident or was it intentional? That remains to be determined,”. However, when talking about protesters Biden said, “I want to make it clear: There is absolutely no justification, none, for looting…Peaceful protest? Understandable.”.
Let this be your final warning, Democrats can be apologists for an authoritarian and racist police state too. Why is it that President Biden can say there’s “absolutely no justification for looting” but he can’t say the same about cops murdering people?
In June 2020 about one month after the murder of George Floyd, Joe Biden wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he made a stance against defunding the police. Instead, he proposed a $300 million increase to our already bloated state and local police budgets. Statistics show that in the United States, state and local governments collectively spend more on policing than most countries spend on their entire militaries.
Regardless, according to Biden police departments need more money to “institute real reforms like adopting a national use of force standard, buying body cameras and recruiting more diverse police officers.”. However, these measures have been implemented in various states, including Minnesota, and they’ve done little to change the authoritarian and racist system of American policing.
In addition to the $300 million funding increase for police, Biden’s 2022 budget request calls for a $1.8 billion increase for the Department of Justice (DOJ), the cabinet that’s equipped with its own police force and is responsible for court proceedings and incarcerations. The total DOJ budget is $35.2 billion. The budget also allocates $52 billion for the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement, including $470 million for ICE.
As the police continue to brutalize the public, Joe Biden wants to give them more money. Make no mistake, Biden is one of the main architects of the racist criminal justice system in the United States. He has no interest in doing anything to meaningfully change the authoritarian and racist structure of American policing.
After the murder of George Floyd, The Bull-Moose Note. published the article “Defund the Police, Refund Social Services” which talks about how the protests that have engulfed the nation over the last year aren’t the result of a singular instance of police brutality; they’re the result of centuries of systemic oppression against poor and working-class Americans, predominantly Black Americans, at the hands of the state. It discusses how the answer to resolving this epidemic of police brutality is not more policing, the answer involves defunding and dismantling our current systems of law enforcement and reimagining them to make them accountable to the people they’re supposed to be serving. This can be achieved by creating a holistic community-based approach to law enforcement that treats the underlying causes of crime, such as poverty, mental health issues, or addiction rather than just punishing those who break the law after the fact. If you’re interested I suggest you check it out.
Matt Dougherty is an independent journalist and managing editor at The Bull-Moose Note. You can subscribe here to get our articles delivered directly to your inbox. If you’d like to support our work, which is always made available for free, you can give a one-time donation through Venmo or become a monthly supporter for $3, $6, or $12 per month through Patreon.