Tag Archives: Black man

Police kill Black man in Minneapolis suburb, sparking protests near Chauvin trial

By Nicholas Pfosi and Jonathan Allen

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (Reuters) – A police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot a young Black man during a traffic stop for what his mother said was air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror, sparking protests that spilled into Monday morning.

The shooting and subsequent unrest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, came hours before the resumption of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former white Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd. The trial began its 11th day on Monday in a courtroom less than 10 miles (16 km) away from the incident.

The Brooklyn Center Police Department said it would hold a briefing at 11 a.m. CDT (1600 GMT) on the shooting.

Relatives and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz identified the man killed by police as Daunte Wright, 20. Walz said in a statement on Sunday that he was monitoring the unrest as “our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”

Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told reporters she had received a call from her son on Sunday afternoon telling her that police had pulled him over for having air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror, which is illegal in Minnesota. She could hear police tell her son to get out the vehicle, she said.

“I heard scuffling, and I heard police officers say, ‘Daunte, don’t run,'” she said through tears. The call ended. When she dialed his number again, his girlfriend answered and said he was dead in the driver’s seat.

In a statement, Brooklyn Center police said officers pulled over a man for a traffic violation just before 2 p.m., and found he had an outstanding arrest warrant. As police tried to arrest him, he got back in the car. One officer shot the man, who was not identified in the statement. The man drove several blocks before striking another vehicle and dying at the scene.

Late Sunday, a group of about 100 to 200 protesters gathered around the Brooklyn Center police headquarters and threw projectiles at the building, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said in a livestreamed news briefing. The group was later dispersed.

Another group of protesters broke into about 20 businesses at a regional shopping center, with some businesses looted, according to the police and local media reports.

Brooklyn Center’s mayor ordered a curfew until 6 a.m. (1100 GMT) on Monday morning, and the local school superintendent said the district would move to remote learning on Monday “out of an abundance of caution.”

Anti-police protesters have already spent recent days rallying in Minneapolis as the trial of Chauvin enters its third week in a courthouse ringed with barriers and National Guard soldiers.

In response to the protests, Derek Chauvin’s lead attorney, Eric Nelson, renewed his request to have the jury sequestered by having members moved to a hotel. Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill again denied the request, saying he would not sequester jurors until they begin deliberations in downtown Minneapolis, which is already heavily fortified against potential unrest.

(Reporting by Nicholas Pfosi in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Jonathan Allen in Minneapolis; additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Texas police officer charged in killing of Black man

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – A white police officer in Texas has been charged with murder following the fatal shooting of a 31-year-old Black man, Jonathan Price, a state law enforcement agency said.

The police officer was responding to a disturbance call on Oct. 3 when he sought to detain Price, who “resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away,” according to a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Shaun Lucas of the Wolfe City Police Department first deployed his Taser before shooting Price with his service weapon, the statement said. Price was transported to the hospital, where he later died.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectively reasonable,” the statement said, adding that the Texas Rangers have charged Lucas with murder.

The incident raised the possibility that Wolfe, a city of 1,500 people in North Texas, would become the latest flashpoint in a national uprising over racism and police brutality that was set off by the death of George Floyd on May 25.

“Everyone in this community will echo that this shouldn’t have happened to Jonathan, because of the character that he had,” civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing the Price family, told a news conference on Monday. “However, this shouldn’t happen to anybody and it happens far too often to unarmed Black men, particularly in North Texas.”

Lucas, who was arrested and jailed on $1 million bond, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Wolfe City Police Department and Hunt County district attorney’s office, which are both helping with the investigation into the shooting, did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. Department of Justice says probe into George Floyd’s death ‘top priority’

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday it had made its investigation into police involvement in the death of George Floyd a “top priority,” after a second day of protests in Minneapolis over the unarmed black man’s death.

Experienced prosecutors and investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been assigned as part of a “robust” probe into whether the police officers involved had violated federal laws, the department said in a statement.

The statement followed a second day of protests in Minneapolis triggered by rage over the death of Floyd, a black man who was seen in a widely circulated video gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

Floyd, 46, died on Monday. The investigation will be carried out by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the Justice Department’s civil rights division and the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office.

The widely circulated video of Floyd’s fatal encounter on Monday night with the police, taken by a bystander, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, “please, I can’t breathe,” before becoming motionless.

The second day of demonstrations, accompanied by looting and vandalism, began on Wednesday hours after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street.

The victim’s brother Philonise Floyd told CNN on Thursday that he was “tired of seeing black men die” and understood people’s anger but urged protesters to be peaceful.

“To the police, I want them to get everything right, start doing your job the right way because I haven’t been seeing it,” Floyd said.

“I want justice, I just want justice,” he added, struggling to fight back tears.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; Editing by Gareth Jones and Bernadette Baum)

Video poses new questions about 2014 Ferguson police shooting

Police line up in front of the Ferguson Market Liquor during a protest, following a release of previously undisclosed video of Michael Brown

(Reuters) – Previously undisclosed video of Michael Brown, recorded hours before the unarmed black 18-year-old was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has raised new questions about his final hours.

The footage shows Brown – whose death in 2014 prompted national protests and kindled a debate about how U.S. police treat minorities – at a convenience store the night before he was killed. It was unearthed by a documentary filmmaker, according to the New York Times.

Shortly after Brown’s death, local police released video of a later visit to the same store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, which showed Brown pushing a worker before walking out with cigarillos in an apparent robbery.

Brown’s family and protesters criticized the release of the video as an effort to demonize the teenager.

Witnesses have given conflicting accounts of his deadly encounter a short time later by police officer Darren Wilson. Local and federal investigations cleared Wilson of criminal wrongdoing.

The new video, which appears in the documentary “Stranger Fruit,” an extract of which was published by the Times, shows Brown in an earlier, seemingly more amicable exchange.

The video shows Brown giving store employees what appears to be a small bag, the contents of which the employees pass around and sniff. One employee gives Brown two boxes of cigarillos in a carrier bag.

Brown takes a few steps away before turning back and handing the bag back to an employee who appears to stash it behind the counter.

Jason Pollock, the documentary filmmaker, said the video shows Brown exchanging marijuana for cigarillos and undermines the police account that Brown may have robbed the store.

“Mike traded the store a little bag of weed and got two boxes of cigarillos in return,” Pollock says in the documentary. “He left his items at the store and he went back the next day to pick them up. Mike did not rob the store.”

Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, also appears in the documentary, saying, “There was some type of exchange, for one thing, for another.”

Jay Kanzler, a lawyer for the convenience store, was quoted by the Times as disputing the filmmaker’s explanation, saying the store did not exchange anything with Brown.

“The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back,” Kanzler was quoted as saying.

Kanzler did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bernadette Baum)