Police release bodycam after Daunte Wright's mom says officer 'grabbed' her
The Brooklyn Center Police Department released body-worn camera footage Thursday of an incident involving Daunte Wright's mother, in which she alleges an officer grabbed her and injured her wrist.
Katie Wright is the mother of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man fatally shot by a Brooklyn Center officer during a traffic stop in 2021.
Kimberly Potter, the officer who killed Wright, was later convicted by a jury of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 months in prison.
A 12-minute video shared by Katie Wright on Facebook Live on Wednesday evening shows the moment an officer crosses the roadway and steps over a fence to confront Wright, who'd pulled over to record officers conducting a traffic stop.
Wright later said she sustained an injured wrist during the incident.
On Thursday, the Brooklyn Center Police Department said officers were requested to assist another agency in a high-risk traffic stop related to a homicide investigation. Wright had parked her vehicle northbound on Highway 252 to record the stop occurring in the southbound lanes, just north of 66th Avenue.
"One of our officers motioned for the driver to keep driving," the department stated. "As one of our officers was assisting in detaining a person from the high-risk stop the person being detained stated she did not want to be filmed and wanted the person filming to stop."
Wright's Facebook Live streaming is missing audio from the moment the officer confronted her, but the bodycam footage shows she had pulled over on the left shoulder of northbound Hwy. 252, and was filming the arrest from the driver's seat, with the driver's side door open as traffic passed on the right.
In the footage, the officer is shown crossing the roadway and stepping over a chain-link fence to approach Wright, who is sitting in her vehicle with the driver's side door open. The officer asks for her driver's license, which she refuses to provide.
"You're going to give me your driver's license or I'm going to take you to jail for obstructing, you're driving a vehicle," the officer says before taking Wright by the wrist, pulling her out of the vehicle and taking her cell phone from her hands.
Wright can be heard identifying herself as Daunte Wright's mother, telling the officer not to touch her and threatening to sue if she's taken to jail.
Moments later, the officer tells Wright she'll be mailed a ticket and walks away. Wright says her phone was thrown on top of her car.
"Once I told him who I was, he let me go," Wright can be heard saying on the Facebook Live video after the officer leaves.
"This is the same police department that murdered my son," she continued. "I'm going to videotape and if you've got a problem with it, I'm not doing anything against the law."
The City of Brooklyn Center told Bring Me The News the body camera footage had been released "in an effort to promote public safety and dispel widespread rumor or unrest," as allowed in state law.
When asked if Wright faces any citations or charges, the city said the incident remains "under review."
In a Facebook post Thursday, Wright called for the officer involved to be fired.
