A few steps from the coffin where her dead son lay, Daunte Wright's mother lamented this Thursday during the funeral of the young man shot by the Minneapolis police: "It is my son who should bury me."
Through tears, Katie Wright exclaimed,
"I never imagined I would be here. The roles should be completely reversed
.
"
Beside her, the young man's father, Audrey Wright, comforted her with his hands on her back.
Hundreds of people with masks, including leaders against racial violence and Washington legislators, joined them at Shiloh Temple International Ministries to celebrate the short life of the 20-year-old, who is survived by a 2-year-old son.
Daunte Wright was fatally shot by a white police officer on April 11 in the small town of Brooklyn Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after she stopped the young man's car at a traffic stop.
Katie and Aubrey Wright, parents of Daunte Wright, during the 20-year-old's funeral service at Shiloh Temple International Ministries in Minneapolis on Thursday, April 22, 2021.
Agent Kim Potter, who is facing a second-degree murder charge and is out on bail, says she mistook her stun gun, also known as a taser, for her service pistol.
The agent was a veteran with 26 years of service;
resigned after the incident.
Wright's funeral took place just two days after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all the murder charges he faced in the death of George Floyd and amid a national debate on police violence. and systemic racism.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a well-known civil rights advocate, predicted in his sermon that the deaths of Daunte Wright and George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police officers "will bring national change."
“The absence of justice is the absence of peace,” Sharpton said, “they cannot tell us to shut up and suffer.
We must speak out when there is injustice "
George Floyd's family at Daunte Wright's funeral this Thursday, April 22, 2021.AP
"On behalf of Daunte, we are going to pass the George Floyd Police Justice Act as federal law," Sharpton told about 600 people.
Other voices were added to his appeal, including those of Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and the family's attorney, Ben Crump, who also represented Floyd's relatives in the Chauvin trial.
"It is time for Washington DC to make progress on necessary police reform and pass the George Floyd Police Justice Act
. We must make the police more accountable," said Klobuchar, who took a seat alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, during the funeral.
Political leaders who attended Wright's funeral felt that the United States should change the training of its officers and police standards, including banning strangulation techniques during arrests.
About 600 people, including civil rights leaders and legislators, attended Daunte Wright's funeral.
AP
Families of several other black people killed by police also attended the funeral, including the mothers of Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb in 2016, and Eric Garner, who was filmed saying "I can't breathe" in a fatal encounter in 2014 with the New York City police.
Also in attendance were relatives of Oscar Grant, killed in 2009 by a California traffic officer who allegedly mistook his service weapon for a taser [similar to Wright's case], and of Emmett Till, the teenager whose 1955 lynching in Mississippi dynamited the civil rights movement.
There was also the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her Kentucky apartment by agents complying with a court order in 2020.
In the past two days, police brutality against African-Americans has not stopped in the United States: Andrew Brown, 42, and Ma'Khia Bryant, 16, were shot dead by officers in North Carolina and Ohio, respectively. .
Daunte Wright leaves behind a 2-year-old son. His mother, Katie, recalled how much Daunte loved the boy:
“He was so happy. He said he was eager for his son to be proud of him. Junior was the joy of his life. I lived for him every day. "