Brooklyn Center city manager fired following police shooting of Daunte Wright

The city manager of Brooklyn Center, Minn., was fired on Monday, the day after the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright.

Mayor Mike Elliott announced Curt Boganey was relieved of his duties effectively immediately.

“Effective immediately our city manager has been relieved of his duties, and the deputy city manager will be assuming his duties moving forward,” Elliott wrote in a statement on Twitter.

“I will continue to work my hardest to ensure good leadership at all levels of our city government,” he continued.

Effective immediately our city manager has been relieved of his duties, and the deputy city manager will be assuming his duties moving forward. I will continue to work my hardest to ensure good leadership at all levels of our city government.

— Mayor Mike Elliott (@mayor_elliott) April 12, 2021

Boganey appeared alongside Elliott at a press conference earlier Monday in which the city manager, who oversaw the firing of officers, said it was too soon to talk of terminating the police officer involved and that “employees are entitled to due process.”

Boganey’s firing came just after Elliott announced that the city council passed a motion to give his office police department command following the growing unrest over Wright’s shooting.

Earlier in the day, police released body camera footage of a Brooklyn Center officer fatally shooting 20-year-old Wright, a Black man, at a traffic stop.

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said it appears that the officer who shot Wright meant to deploy a taser but mistakenly pulled her gun instead.

The footage shows Wright, at a traffic stop, trying to get back into his car while two officers attempt to place handcuffs on him.

Wright was initially pulled over for expired license tags, but after obtaining his ID, officers realized there was an outstanding warrant out for his arrest.

An officer can be heard shouting “Tase him” multiple times in the footage after Wright gets back into his car’s driver’s seat. In the video, an officer points a gun at Wright as he grabs the steering wheel and shouts “Shit” and then appears to drop the handgun.

The officer then can be heard saying, “I just shot him.”

Protests over Wright’s death erupted overnight in Minnesota.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced on Monday that he will represent Wright’s family.

Crump also represents the family of George Floyd, who died last May after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes during an arrest. Chauvin’s murder trial began its third week on Monday.