“I lost my son. He’s never coming back. I can’t accept that mistake. That doesn’t even sound right.”
The parents of Daunte Wright, a Black man who was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota, said that they “cannot accept” that it was an accident.
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police chief, Tim Gannon, said in a press conference on Monday that Kim Potter, the white police officer that shot Wright, accidentally mistook her handgun for a taser, the Guardian reported.
Wright’s parents, Aubrey and Katie Wright, appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, to discuss the circumstances surrounding their 20-year-old son’s death.
The parents of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a white police officer in a Minneapolis suburb on Sunday, said they "can't accept" the notion that their son's killing was "a mistake." https://t.co/gwMJmhAfUm pic.twitter.com/CWHQfUWDIH
— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 13, 2021
Wright’s father, Aubrey, said that he “cannot accept” the explanation given by the police chief as a result of Potter’s lengthy experience in the police force.
He said: “I lost my son. He’s never coming back. I can’t accept that mistake. That doesn’t even sound right.”
“This officer has been on the force for 26 years,” he added.
Daunte Wright, a father-of-two, was shot while in the company of his girlfriend, his parents told GMA.
Wright’s mother, Katie, said that her son called her during the traffic stop, and she heard the officers tell him to get out of his car and put the phone down.
She said: “Then I heard scuffling and the girl that was with him screaming, and I heard an officer ask for them to hang up the phone and then I didn’t hear anything else.”
Wright’s girlfriend called his mother after the incident and said “they shot him”, his mother revealed.
After shooting Daunte Wright, the Minnesota police officer is heard saying on her police bodycam: “Holy shit, I just shot him.”
Potter and the police chief resigned on Tuesday, following the shooting.
