New Yorkers Mourn Daunte Wright

This story was reported and written by a high school student in The City College of New York (CCNY) Early College Program.

A crowd gathered in the middle of Washington Square Park near the fountain on a sunny Sunday afternoon. People knelt and stood and murmured prayers around a photo of Daunte Wright. Some had placed flowers and people lit candles at the makeshift memorial. “Imagine if that was one of your own, someone that was part of your family and they were taken from you and now you can never see them again because a cop decided to shoot instead,” David, one of the mourners, said.

Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 11, 2021. Police had stopped him for an expired car registration. The police officer who killed him said she thought her gun was a taser. Instead of using the taser on Wright, she shot him. In nearby Minneapolis, the trial of the former police officer who killed George Floyd was going on.

Many demonstrated in Minnesota and throughout the country, including in New York City. People protested and spoke out about the way people of color are treated by the police. At the Washington Square Park memorial, many people joined together and listened to what various people had to say about what happened to Daunte Wright.

Sasha, a woman with mocha skin and her hair in a ponytail, said, “Daunte shouldn’t have died, and the police officer should be the one to be held accountable. It’s exactly how every other death at the hands of the police goes.”

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began because of the treatment of people of color by the police and the rest of society. Systemic racism in the United States makes life harder and deadlier for people of color.

“Hopefully more and more people will see that it’s starting to be a huge problem and they will help the movement change things. It matters because if BLM continues fighting for minorities then eventually we can all be equal,” Sasha said.

David stood near the memorial and said, “The movement has been pushing forward their agenda every day, and what happened to Daunte will keep the movement motivated so the killing of people of color will not become normalized.”

People began to leave the park with the hope that Daunte’s death and the deaths of others at the hands of police will push more people to fight for equality