Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. — On Monday, the Brooklyn Center City Council is expected to reconsider a proposal to establish a Community Safety and Violence Prevention Commission, which was introduced as part of sweeping public safety reforms after Daunte Wright was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in April 2021.
The 20-year-old was shot by former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter, who claimed she used her gun instead of her Taser by mistake and was later found guilty of first and second-degree manslaughter.
Four years on, a memorial stands near the intersection where Daunte was killed. As the seasons change, new flowers bloom at the memorial, but Daunte’s mother, Katie Wright, says not much has changed since her son’s death.
“We were super optimistic in the beginning,” she told me. “I am so over being optimistic and hopeful.”
The proposed commission would advise the city on certain public safety and health policies, as well as recommend “new and innovative concepts in community safety and violence prevention”.
We want community policing. “We want our police officers to know their community and your police officers by name,” Wright said. “That is the way to restore trust in the city. It’s a way to foster community-police cooperation and actually build that bridge.”
During previous meetings, some council members expressed concerns about the commission’s composition and scope of responsibilities. Councilors Dan Jerzak, Laurie Ann Moore, and Kris Lawrence-Anderson voted against accepting the resolution’s amendments at the March council meeting.
KARE 11 reached out to council members for comment. Moore replied via email: “I have no comment.” Jerzak and Lawrence-Anderson didn’t respond.
“Overall, I just don’t support it,” Lawrence-Anderson stated at a previous council meeting. Lawrence-Anderson told Mayor April Graves, “I don’t have to tell you why.”
The Brooklyn Center City Council first voted to establish the commission in December. However, with new members joining in January, the process was paused. Since then, the vote has been postponed while amendments to the resolution are reviewed.
“I got to do what it takes to make sure there are no more names,” Wright told the audience. “I will continue to do it in his name, and I think that that’s the best that I can do at this point.”
Wright expressed her hope that council members do the right thing at Monday’s meeting. “Let’s make this change together,” she said. “We don’t want any other mothers to go through the hell that we’ve been through.”
Even if council members decide not to proceed with the commission, Wright said she will continue to advocate for reform and accountability through her nonprofit, the Daunte & Kobe No More Names Initiative, which she founded with Amity Dimock, whose son was shot and killed by Brooklyn Center police in 2019.