Brooklyn Center, Minn., police chief Tim Gannon said Monday that the police officer who shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright after stopping his car did so by mistake and was meant to use a taser instead.
The department released dramatic body-cam footage of the incident, showing the officers approaching Wright’s car after pulling him over for expired license tags. Officers later discovered there was an outstanding warrant out for his arrest after obtaining his ID.
The video shows that when two of the officers attempted to arrest Wright and place him in handcuffs, he appears to have tried to get back into his car.
An officer can then be heard shouting “Tase him” multiple times after Wright, in handcuffs, gets back into his car’s driver seat. In the video, an officer points a gun at Wright as he grabs the steering wheel and shouts “Sh*t!” and then appears to drop her handgun.
The officer then can be heard stating, “I just shot him.”
Wright was shot once and died in a Minneapolis suburb just miles from where George Floyd was killed during a police arrest last May.
“It is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” Chief Gannon told reporters during a news conference.
Gannon also stated that officers receive “numerous trainings throughout the year” that deal with tactics, firearms and taser deployment, according to The Hill.
“We have a pretty thorough taser requalifications on a yearly basis, but then we also do a number of scenarios in role-playing exercises as well,” he said.
