BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The mother of Daunte Wright says a Brooklyn Center police officer injured her wrist while she recorded a police traffic stop on Highway 252 Wednesday night.
Katie Wright, along with community activists, held a news conference about the incident outside the Brooklyn Center police station Thursday afternoon.
Wright said she started livestreaming the police officers Wednesday night because it was her "civic duty." Wright said she wanted to make sure the two young Black men the officers had pulled over would get home safe that night.
"I pulled over to the shoulder, stopped to record to make sure that those babies-- it was two young kids, they had to have been in their 20s to make sure they got home safe, because we know we have a police problem in Minnesota," Wright said at the press conference.
While she was recording, video showed one of the officers crossed the highway and confronted her. Wright said the officer grabbed her wrist and told her she was obstructing justice. Wright said the officer injured her wrist and wants him to be terminated.
"I don't want a police officer like that patrolling our community," Wright said at the press conference. "He escalated a situation that didn't need to be escalated."
Wright's son, Daunte, died on April 11, 2021, when former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter fatally shot him during a traffic stop.
The city of Brooklyn Center released the body camera footage of Wednesday's incident, which showed an officer make his way from the traffic stop to Wright, across the median, where the officer took Wright's phone out of her hand as the two exchanged words.
Police claimed one of the people "being detained stated she did not want to be filmed and wanted the person filming to stop."
The city also released a statement in response to Wright's claims and their decision to release the body camera footage:
In our ongoing efforts to work with community members and create a stronger, more tolerant and inclusive community the City of Brooklyn Center is releasing BWC footage of the Wednesday, May 4, 2022 event. While assisting another agency on a high-risk stop as part of a homicide investigation, there was an encounter between Katie Wright and Brooklyn Center officers. The release of the footage is in an effort to promote public safety and dispel widespread rumor or unrest.