MINNEAPOLIS — Two days after the streets of Minneapolis were
filled with people celebrating the conviction of a police officer for the
murder of
George Floyd, the city returned to a period of mourning on Thursday
for another Black man killed by a police officer.
اضافة اعلان
Packed into a church for the funeral of Daunte Wright were
politicians, faith leaders and relatives of other people killed by the police,
including the boyfriend of
Breonna Taylor and the families of Philando Castile
and Oscar Grant. Many had come from across the country to pay respects to Wright,
the 20-year-old man who was fatally shot by an officer in the Minneapolis
suburb of Brooklyn Center last week during a traffic stop.
Also in attendance were relatives of Emmett Till, the
14-year-old Black boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 and whose cousin
recently met with Philonise Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers. After Derek
Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for
more than nine minutes, was found guilty of murder on Tuesday, Philonise Floyd
said he had thought of both Wright and Emmett Till, whom he called “the first
George Floyd.”
On Thursday, the Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy for
Wright to a grieving family and city. He said he was told that Minneapolis had
not seen a funeral procession so large since Prince, the musician who was born
and raised in Minneapolis, had died in 2016.
“Well, we came to bury the prince of Brooklyn Center,” Sharpton
said, standing before a white coffin that was covered in red roses. “We come
from all over the country because you hurt one of our princes.”
Wright was killed during a traffic stop for an expired
registration, during which a police officer also noted the air freshener
hanging from his rearview mirror as an additional violation. His death, during
the Chauvin trial, set off a wave of protests in Brooklyn Center that lasted
for more than a week.
“You thought he was just some kid with an air freshener,”
Sharpton said. “He was a prince, and all of Minneapolis has stopped today to
honor the prince of Brooklyn Center.”
Through tears, Wright’s parents remembered him at the service as
a loving son, a class clown and a new father, whose child, Daunte Jr., is not
even 2 years old.
“He always said he couldn’t wait to make his son proud,” said
Katie Wright, Daunte Wright’s mother. “Junior was the joy of his life, and he
lived for him every single day, and now he’s not going to be able to see him.”
Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota each gave
their condolences to the Wright family at the service, and Rep. Ilhan Omar
presented his parents with a flag that she said had flown over the U.S. Capitol
in his memory.
The funeral service on Thursday was a sharp reminder that the
toll of police violence has endured during and since the trial of Chauvin. An
average of roughly three people a day were killed by the police during the
trial, and, just minutes before the verdict was read, an officer in Columbus,
Ohio, shot and killed a teenage girl who was lunging toward another girl with a
knife, setting off more protests.
From across the street, Brianna Patterson and a friend watched
people file into the church and thought about their own children and how to
keep them safe from the police.
“Every time my 22-year-old son goes out, I want to keep him
home,” Patterson said. “This has been happening since I was a twinkle in my
mother’s eye. This has been happening since my mother was a twinkle.”
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