A suburb in the US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has agreed to pay $ 3.2 million to the family of Dode Wright, a black man shot dead by a police officer who said he confused her gun with her teaser. Lawyers said in a statement late Tuesday that the settlement of the Wright family’s unjust death lawsuit against the Brooklyn Center would not be finalized until an agreement was reached on further training for city police. “The overall settlement in this tragic case will provide a significant measure of accountability to the family for its deep loss,” they said. “The family hopes its legacy will be positive and will prevent any other family from enduring this kind of grief.” NEW: Daunte Wright’s family has settled with the city of Brooklyn Center for $ 3.25 million. pic.twitter.com/9Pu4lR4pHT – Mary McGuire (@mcguirereports) June 22, 2022 Wright was shot once in the chest in April 2021 by Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter, who is white, after the 20-year-old stopped because he had expired license plates in his car. The former officer was later convicted of first- and second-degree homicide and sentenced to two years in prison. The assassination sparked a nationwide outcry, with many seeing it as another example of unwarranted police violence against Black Americans. It happened near the spot where Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, assassinated George Floyd, whose death helped spark protests across the nation and the world. The announcement comes amid a series of settlements involving black shootings by police. Last year, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $ 27 million to Floyd’s family, which lawyers said was the largest pre-trial settlement of its kind in U.S. history. The city of Louisville, Kentucky has agreed to pay Breona Taylor’s family $ 12 million and reform police practices in September 2020. Taylor was shot by police at her home during a failed raid. Minnesota previously paid $ 20 million to the family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond after calling 911 to report a suspected attack behind her home in July 2017 and was fatally shot by Mohamed Noor, one of the police officers who responded to the call. of. Noor is a Somali American and Damond was white. Wright’s family members “hope and believe that change in policing, policies and education will bring significant improvements to the community in Daude’s name,” said co-counsel Antonio M Romanucci. “Nothing can bring him back, but the family hopes his legacy will be positive and prevent any other family from enduring the grief with which he will live for the rest of his life.” The aftermath of Wright’s death led Brooklyn City Council to approve a series of reforms, including the use of social workers and other trained professionals to meet medical, mental and social needs that did not require police. The changes also bar police from making arrests for low-level offenses and require the city to use unarmed civilians to handle minor traffic violations.
