Daunte Wright’s father says he ‘can’t accept’ police claim that officer meant to use taser

The father of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot on Sunday by a police officer at a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minn., says he “can’t accept” authorities claiming that the officer meant to use a Taser instead of firing her gun.

“I cannot accept that,” Aubrey Wright told ABC’s Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America.” “I lost my son. He’s never coming back. I can’t accept that a mistake — that doesn’t even sound right. This officer has been on the force for 26-plus years. I can’t accept that.”

Daunte Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told “Good Morning America” that she would like to see “justice served” and the officer “held accountable for everything that she’s taken from us.” 

EXCLUSIVE: Daunte Wright’s father says he “can’t accept” that a police officer fatally shot his 20-year-old son by accident: “I lost my son. He is never coming back. I can’t accept that. A mistake? That doesn’t even sound right.” https://t.co/gwMJmhAfUm pic.twitter.com/oRdhS2f7vv

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 13, 2021

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said on Monday that he believed the officer mistakenly pulled her gun instead of a Taser on the 20-year-old after police say they stopped his car because of expired tags. 

Katie Wright on Tuesday said that her son called her on Sunday after he was pulled over by police. She said he told her he was pulled over for having air fresheners hanging in the rearview mirror of his vehicle and that officers were asking for his car insurance.

She offered to explain the insurance information to the officer, but she heard her son put down the phone after police asked him to step out of his car.

“I heard scuffling, and the girl that was with him screaming, and I heard an officer ask for them to hang up the phone, and then I didn’t hear anything else,” Katie Wright said. 

“I tried to call back three, four times, and then the girl that was with him answered the phone, and she said that they shot him, and he was laying in the driver’s seat, unresponsive,” the mother said through tears.

EXCLUSIVE: “The girl that was with him answered the phone and said that they shot him and he was laid in the driver’s seat, unresponsive.” — Daunte Wright’s mother on the moment she learned her son had been killed by police during a traffic stop. https://t.co/gwMJmhAfUm pic.twitter.com/qP81ZYlNtE

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 13, 2021

In body cam footage released this week, three officers approached Wright’s car after pulling him over for expired license tags. Officials said that after obtaining Wright’s ID, they discovered there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. 

The video shows that, when two of the officers attempted to arrest Wright and place him in handcuffs, he appeared to try to get back in his car.

Protests have erupted in Minnesota in the wake of Wright’s death, with hundreds of people demonstrating in the streets of the Minneapolis suburb to renew calls for widespread police reforms.

The shooting comes as the trial for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is well underway. Chauvin is facing murder charges in the death of George Floyd, who died last year after the then-police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest.