As outrage continued over the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright by a Brooklyn Center police officer, the St. Thomas Racial Justice Initiative held a service for a time of community healing, dialogue and prayer over Zoom on Tuesday.
St. Thomas campus buildings and services closed at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday in response to a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Minneapolis and St. Paul curfew in the wake of Wright’s shooting Sunday by Officer Kim Potter.
Potter resigned Tuesday, along with Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon. Gannon has said he believed Potter mistakenly grabbed her pistol when she was trying to pull out her Taser.
“It’s important for us to create space to come together to grieve, to reflect and to be a community that recognizes that faith is essential to the process of growth and overcoming,” said Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative.
Crowds gathered Monday night to protest the killing of Wright despite the 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew enacted by Gov. Tim Walz that night.
About 90 minutes past curfew, law enforcement fired gas canisters and flash-bang grenades, which some protesters threw back. Police in riot gear then began pushing back the protesters.
The following afternoon, a group of protestors gathered in front of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, holding signs and attempting to speak to law enforcement standing behind a fence in riot gear.
“I want to talk to those people in blue,” demonstrator Patience Chowoe said. “They need to talk to me and they need to have the conversation with me.”
(Justin Amaker/TommieMedia)
“I’ve been in the car with a white person being pulled over, and (the police are) like, ‘how’s your day going? I stopped you because of so-and-so,’” Chowoe continued. “But, when a Black person is pulled over, they are automatically just angry, and I want to know why the anger.”
Arthur Sims, a Brooklyn Center resident and acquaintance of Wright, called for a fair way of punishing police.
“All I want is for cops to be treated like any normal person if they do a crime. I don’t care how small a crime, they should deal with it because they are the ones enforcing the laws,” Sims said.
Lauren Van Vickle, a resident of Brooklyn Center, went to the police station to clean the debris from the protests the night before. He said that he felt the protests were bringing down the community.
“This isn’t gonna bring him back. This is going to make matters worse for everybody,” Van Vickle said.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot tweeted at Gov. Walz this afternoon asking him to “reassign Daunte’s case to the office of the attorney general.”
To ensure transparency and to continue building trust in our community, I’m asking the Governor @GovTimWalz to reassign Daunte’s case to the office of the attorney general @AGEllison.
— Mayor Mike Elliott (@mayor_elliott) April 13, 2021
With the St. Thomas campus in close proximity to the turmoil, incoming St. Thomas Vice President for Mission the Rev. Chris Collins offered guidance to the community.
“(Suffering is) also the place where the gift of hope can come to because love starts to get drawn out of us,” Collins said at the prayer service.
Angeline Terry, Joey Swanson, Scout Mason, Justin Amaker and Natalie Hoepner contributed to this report.
The Associated Press also contributed to this report.