It was a fourth of night face-off as protesters went face to face with the police for Wednesday in the American city of Minneapolis over the killing of a young Black man by name Daunte Wright who was shot by an officer last weekend.
Reports say that tensions have soared over the Sunday police shooting of Daunte Wright near the midwestern city, in a community already heated up over the ongoing trial of an officer accused of killing another Black man, George Floyd, last year.
Witnesses say riot police moved in to disperse a group of demonstrators estimated to number between 800 and 1,000 in Brooklyn Center, the suburb where Sunday’s shooting took place.
On Tuesday, officers reportedly deployed stun grenades while protesters retaliated by throwing objects including water bottles and bricks, law enforcement officials said.
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Earlier in the day, the families of Wright and Floyd came together to demand an end to police brutality and the killing of unarmed African Americans by white officers.
‘The world is traumatized watching another African-American man being slain,’ Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said of 20-year-old Wright, as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Wright’s relatives at an outdoor press event in driving snow.
Two days earlier Philonise Floyd testified in the case against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer on trial for murder and manslaughter in the case of George Floyd, whose death last year shocked the nation.
Wright was shot dead during a traffic stop by a police officer who apparently confused her handgun with her Taser, in what the force later described as a horrible accident.
The officer who shot Wright resigned on Tuesday, as did Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon, who had told reporters earlier that the officer ‘had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet.’
The families rejected the accident explanation, as several relatives and activists at the press event called for the officer to be arrested and jailed for her actions.
‘A so-called mistake? A handgun for a Taser? It’s unacceptable,’ Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams said.
‘Just because you are the law doesn’t mean you’re above the law,’ he added.
‘When is enough, enough?‘ he queried.
Wright’s killing Sunday has triggered fresh tumult, with protesters taking to the streets despite the imposition of a curfew.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK