Daunte Wright’s funeral is set for Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis
Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to eulogize Daunte Wright — the Black motorist fatally shot by a Minnesota police officer during an arrest attempt this month — at Wright’s funeral Thursday in Minneapolis.
Wright’s funeral sets up another emotional day for a Minneapolis area scarred by several high-profile killings involving police, and it comes just two days after an officer was found guilty of murder in one of those cases — the May death of George Floyd.
The funeral for Wright, 20, is scheduled to start noon CT at Shiloh Temple International Ministries in Minneapolis.
Wright’s death on April 11 in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center happened about 10 miles from where the trial in Floyd’s death was held this month. Wright’s killing sparked nights of protests in Brooklyn Center and reignited national conversations about policing and the use of force.
Police initially said the Brooklyn Center officer who shot Wright appeared to mistake her gun for her Taser when she fired. She had pulled Wright over for an expired tag, and then tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant; Wright was shot as he resisted and got back into his vehicle, authorities said.
The officer, Kim Potter, resigned and was arrested and charged last week with second-degree manslaughter.
Wright’s family has called for Potter to be held accountable.
“I felt anger, I felt sadness, I felt loss and I felt helpless,” Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told reporters on Friday. “I don’t want to feel helpless. I need my son to have justice.”
In delivering Wright’s eulogy, Sharpton will reprise a role he played at Floyd’s funeral nearly 11 months ago in the same city.
Wright’s killing is the latest in a string of deaths of Black men during police encounters in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in the past five years, including the shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights in 2016 and the death of Floyd in May.