“We gotta go [through] life without him,” Naisha Wright, aunt of 20-year-old Daunte Wright who was fatally shot by former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter, said during a press conference on Thursday (April 15).
Daunte’s family gathered ahead of Potter’s first court appearance after she was charged and arrested with second-degree manslaughter on Wednesday (April 14). Potter posted a $100,000 bond hours after being booked into the Hennepin County jail.
Potter fatally shot Wright during a traffic stop for expired tags on Sunday afternoon (April 11).
Daunte’s mother, Katie Wright, spoke during the conference and said that the word “justice” is hard to conceive when her son is dead.
“The last few days everybody has asked me what we want, what do we want to see happen, and everybody keeps saying ‘justice.’ But unfortunately, there’s never going to be justice for us. The justice [we want] would bring our son home to us, knocking on the door with his big smile coming in the house, sitting down eating dinner with us, going out to lunch, playing with his [one-year-old] son, giving him a kiss before he walks out the door,” Wright’s mother said.
“So… justice isn’t even a word to me. I do want accountability, 100 percent accountability, like my sister said, the highest accountability, but even then when that happens –– if that happens –– we’re still going to bury our son.”
Protests broke out across Brooklyn Center and nearby Minneapolis in response to Daunte’s death and the released body camera footage which shows Potter yelling “Taser!” while holding her firearm and shooting Wright.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the family and told reporters a funeral service will be held on Thursday (April 22) at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church. Crump shared the Rev. Al Sharpton will give the eulogy.
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