In the same month former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd, the city of Minneapolis also mourned the death of Daunte Wright.
Wright, a 20-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot and killed by former Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer Kim Potter during a traffic stop on April 11.
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The incident occurred less than 20 minutes away from where Floyd was killed in May 2020.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President and CEO Derrick Johnson released a statement in response to the killing of Wright on April 12.
“Daunte Wright was shot and killed yesterday, just north of where George Floyd was suffocated less than a year ago,” Johnson said. “Both were fathers, both were Black men, both died at the hands of police. Whether it be carelessness and negligence, or a blatant modern-day lynching, the result is the same. Another Black man has died at the hands of police.”
Brooklyn Center Police Department officials said Potter mistook her handgun for her Taser when she fatally shot Wright.
Potter has been charged with second-degree manslaughter by the Washington County Attorney’s Office.
Wright’s death serves as a somber reminder that the fight to protect Black lives isn’t over yet.
An investigation by NPR published in January 2021 found that police officers have fatally shot at least 135 unarmed Black men and women nationwide since 2015.
That number continues to rise.
In April, Wright, Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old Black man, and Ma’Khia Bryant, a Black 16-year-old, were all shot and killed by police officers.
Attention has also been placed on the excessive use of force against people of color more broadly as Adam Toledo, a Hispanic 13-year-old, was shot and killed by a police officer in April.
The excessive use of force on people of color, especially Black people, has sparked calls for change and police reform.
The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old.
The movement continued to garner national attention in 2014 following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two Black men who also died in police custody.
After Floyd’s killing, the Black Lives Matter movement went mainstream.
The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was shared more than 100 million times in the month after Floyd was killed, according to a report from Kivvit, a communications firm.
Summer 2020 saw protests of racial injustice sweep the nation. Demonstrations in multiple U.S. cities drew thousands of people denouncing racial inequity and police brutality with chants of, “Black lives matter!”
During his campaign trail in the 2020 election, President Joe Biden proposed creating a national police oversight commission within his first 100 days in office. April 29 marked the passing of that milestone, but the commission has yet to be launched.
In a recent statement to USA Today, domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said the administration made the decision to forgo the commission in favor of signing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act into law.
According to Rice, the decision was made after the administration consulted with activist groups, mainly the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
“The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act seeks to hold our system of justice accountable at a time when transparency and liability are lacking,” Johnson said. “We’ve witnessed far too many deaths at the hands of law enforcement with little to no recourse. It is long overdue that we reimagine public safety in our communities and rethink policing; this piece of legislation aims to do just that.”
Provisions in the bill include requiring federal uniformed police officers to have body-worn cameras, prohibiting federal police officers from using chokeholds or other carotid holds, and mandating that federal officers use deadly force only as a last resort and that de-escalation be attempted, among other provisions.
The bill passed the House of Representatives in a 220-212 vote on March 3. It has not yet been voted upon by the Senate, though Biden encouraged Congress to send him the bill before the upcoming one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death.
On April 21, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the Justice Department opened an investigation into the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department.
“The investigation will assess all types of force used by MPD officers, including uses of force involving individuals with behavioral health disabilities and uses of force against individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment,” a statement from the Department of Justice read. “The investigation will also assess whether MPD engages in discriminatory policing.”
In addition, an investigation into the Louisville Police Department was announced by Attorney General Garland on April 26, following the March 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman shot and killed by Louisville police officers in her apartment.
Despite these movements, people of color continue to be killed by police officers.
Many had hoped the conviction of Chauvin would bring changes to policing, but ending police violence and developing racial justice will take more action than criminal charges to a former police officer.
A conviction is only the beginning.