By Olivia Cushman
This week, for the last issue of the Westerner for Spring 2021, I will touch upon an issue that I am incredibly passionate about, despite not coming from a remotely black or minority background. At the time of writing this, Derek Chauvin, former Minneapolis police officer, is currently on trial for the killing of George Floyd last May. Just three days ago, on April 11th, Daunte Wright, 20, was shot and killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
The Black Lives Matter movement is an incredibly relevant and important one, as it advocates for justice concerning the repeated and needless killings of black men and women, usually at the hands of the police. After outrage and protests across the country following the death of George Floyd at the hand of Derek Chauvin, there has been a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement; and only during Chauvin’s trial was it that Daunte Wright was killed by Kim Potter, in the very same state that Floyd was killed nearly a year earlier.
Kim Potter was a police officer for 26 years before Wright’s death, and resigned shortly after. She pulled over Wright’s vehicle at a traffic stop due to an object hanging from the rear view mirror, which is prohibited by Minnesota state law. Potter then realized that there was a warrant out for Wright’s arrest, after an alleged armed robbery and assault. She gave the excuse that she meant to fire her taser, after Wright resisted arrest. The chilling bodycam footage from that day shows Potter firing her lethal weapon instead of deploying her taser.
After being shot, Wright drove off, only getting a few feet away before colliding with a vehicle at another intersection. Wright’s girlfriend, a passenger at the time of the deadly shooting, was hospitalized for non life threatening injuries shortly thereafter, and Daunte Wright was pronounced dead at the scene on April 11th, 2021 at 2:18pm. There is to be an investigation following this incident, and Kim Potter is to be charged with second-degree manslaughter.
There is NO reason that Potter should have mistaken her gun for her taser. Serving as a police officer 6 years before Daunte Wright was even BORN gives no excuse, absolutely none, for what happened on Sunday, April 11th. As a person with privilege, I was blind to the fact that white supremacy plagues the nation.
The criminal justice system in this nation is more than racist; it reeks of white supremacy and police brutality. Disproportionally killing people from a black background has been seen again, and again, and again. And the sad truth is, until we dismantle this incredibly and deeply rooted racist system, and build it again from the ground up, things will never get better for black and brown people all across the country.
There are numerous eyewitness testimonies for the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, who was charged with the killing of George Floyd. In May of 2020, many protests were arranged all over the country in protest of police brutality and the killing of countless black people at the hands of the police. During the second week of Chauvin’s trial, Floyd’s cause of death was ruled a homicide. The sickening footage that went viral of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck when he pleaded “I Can’t Breathe!” became the slogan for the Black Lives Matter movement last year after this horrible tragedy.
The bottom line is; the police aren’t supposed to kill people, period. The police disproportionately target black people and people of color. Abolishing or simply defunding the police and recreating the criminal justice system to suit modern day laws is not radical; it’s a stance on human rights.
