Activists including members of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota confronted the mayor and acting police chief of Brooklyn Center, Minn., on Tuesday at a news conference discussing the ongoing situation resulting from Sunday’s fatal police shooting death of Daunte Wright.
At the news conference, activists argued that Wright, 20, had been racially profiled by officers who pulled his vehicle over for a minor traffic violation and questioned the assembled city officials over what would be done to reduce instances of racial profiling committed by city police officers.
Both the officer involved and the former police chief announced their resignations on Tuesday.
“Our brother was racially profiled,” one of the activists who appeared to be affiliated with the ACLU told the new acting police chief, Tony Gruenig.
Black people in the city are “sacrificial lambs, and we will not continue to be that,” added an older man to the city’s first Black mayor, Mike Elliott.
The emotional pleas for justice followed two nights of protests in the city over Wright’s death, which comes as the Minneapolis area is dealing with the ongoing trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering George Floyd.
Before his resignation, former chief Thomas Gannon told reporters that the officer who shot Wright mistakenly believed she was pulling out her Taser when she fired on him as he attempted to reenter his vehicle while being handcuffed.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Gruenig responded to activists who asked what his plan was to address racial profiling by stressing that he was appointed “an hour ago” and that he did not yet have a plan to address their concerns.