The shooting on Sunday of Daunte Wright is poised to unleash a fresh round of disputes about policing practices, according to legal experts.
Police shot and killed Wright, 20, during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. The incident ignited protests similar to the ones after George Floyd died under the knee of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year. In both cases, footage of the incidents triggered intense scrutiny of policing practices.
At a news briefing on Monday, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said the officer who shot Wright “accidentally discharged” her gun, thinking it was a Taser. In the body camera footage presented, an officer can be heard before the shot was fired, shouting, “Taser! Taser! Taser!”
JUDGE IN CHAUVIN CASE REJECTS JURY SEQUESTRATION AFTER DAUNTE WRIGHT SHOOTING
“Holy s—. I shot him,” the officer can be heard saying before the video ends.
Gannon, who said the officer in question was a “very senior” member of the police force, said an internal investigation was in its early stages.
“This appears to me, from what I viewed and the officers’ reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright,” Gannon said.
The handling of the shooting will no doubt revive questions about the doctrine of qualified immunity, which generally protects police from personal lawsuits after incidents that result in alleged misconduct, said Brandon Garrett, a law professor at Duke University.
“In terms of civil rights liability, the question is what an objectively reasonable officer would do under the circumstances,” he said of the Wright shooting, adding that the particular officer’s mindset during the stop won’t necessarily matter in the investigation.
Debates about qualified immunity, which the Supreme Court established in its current form in 1982, have heated up significantly since Floyd’s death. The Wright shooting happened not far from where Chauvin is on trial in the highly publicized Floyd case.
The actual details of the shooting will also become the subject of heated debate, said Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.
“For anyone to shoot a gun thinking it is a Taser is, at the least, negligent,” he said. “For a trained office to do so is, at the least, grossly negligent.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Slobogin added that the chain of events that led to the shooting in the first place was probably preventable, starting with the traffic stop, which occurred, according to Wright before his death, because he had air fresheners dangling from his mirror, which is illegal in Minnesota.
“So many of these incidents resulting in death begin with a confrontation that should not have occurred in the first place,” he said.
Police said the stop occurred because Wright’s registration had expired. Police also found that he had two outstanding warrants for his arrest after missing court dates.
