If you haven’t heard the name Daunte Wright yet, then you will soon enough. Daunte Wright was a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a female police officer during a traffic stop in Minneapolis. Wright was originally pulled over for having an expired registration and after officers determined that he had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court and possessed a gun without a permit, they tried to arrest him.
In released bodycam footage, the driver struggled away from officers and re-entered his vehicle to drive off before an officer fired, striking him. The shooting was described as an “accidental discharge” in which the officer responsible was supposed to fire a Taser, not a handgun. “It is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” said Brooklyn Center Police Department Chief Tim Gannon. The officer even announced ‘taser’ beforehand and after the gun went off, the officer gave a surprised exclamation and said “Oh my god I shot him.”
The shooting took place about 10 miles from where George Floyd died in Minneapolis.
Shortly after the shooting, liberals took the story and politicized it as best as they could. It started with Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey who’d been fired hours after disagreeing with Mayor Mike Elliot that the police officer should be immediately fired in response to the incident. Mayor Elliot said that the police department cannot afford to make mistakes that lead to the loss of life and other people in their profession. He said he fully supports releasing the officer of her duties.
Boganey, however, argued that all employees working for the city of Brooklyn Center should be entitled to due process with respect to discipline. Police are generally unionized and have rights as well. The officer could make a claim against the city for taking any action other than suspension pending the competition of an investigation. The unidentified officer who shot Wright was put on administrative leave.
But council members disagreed with Boganey and voted to fire him out of fear that there could be “potential reprisals from protesters” if they did not. One council member, Kris Lawrence-Anderson, even admits that Boganey was doing a great job and that she respects him dearly, but that she didn’t want any ‘repercussions at a personal level.”
But, of course, bowing down to the mob mentality never works. Hundreds of rioters gathered at the Brooklyn Center Police Department to throw objects and rocks at officers, as well as jump on top of police cars. There were attempts to burglarize and loot many businesses, including a Dollar Tree Store and a Speedway gas station. After police made several dispersal orders, they started to deploy tear gas and flash-bang canisters in the area. About 40 arrests were made overnight for breaking curfew, fighting with police, and attempted burglary.
Even Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the socialist “Squad,” has joined in on the anarchy by suggesting the complete abolition of police and incarceration on Twitter. She called it a “government-funded murder” and that it was no accident. “Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist. No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed,” she tweeted.
After Tlaib’s tweet, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke at a news conference to ask how politicians can push for “greater toughness” and root out systemic bias in law enforcement without abolishing the force completely. He also mentioned the Justice In Policing Act, which was a bill passed in the House in March and called for police reform instead of abolition. As crime continues to spike, centrist Democrats are moving further away from the ‘defund the police’ movement they pushed last year. House Majority Whip James Clyburn even suggested that the calls to “defund the police” or “abolish the police department” was one of the reasons why Democrats lost so many seats in Congress.
Radical left politicians can talk at ‘defunding the police’ and engaging in police reform after they’ve gotten rid of their own police and security forces. The radical left spends days attacking the Second Amendment and law enforcement as a whole while having thousands of National Troop guards stationed around Capitol Hill. The irony.
