Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri said that the officer who shot Daunte Wright would have known the difference between a taser and a gun if Wright “wasn’t a black boy.”
Bush tweeted Tuesday that Officer Kim Potter, who has 26 years of experience in the police force, would not have mistakenly used a gun rather than a taser if Wright were not black. She denied Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon’s claims that Potter accidentally used the wrong weapon.
“The 26-year-veteran cop, former president of the police union, doesn’t know the difference between a taser and a gun, and you say more training would’ve fixed this?” she tweeted. “Nah. But I bet she would’ve known the difference if Daunte wasn’t a black boy or if he was her loved one.”
The 26-year-veteran cop, former president of the police union, doesn’t know the difference between a taser and a gun, and you say more training would’ve fixed this?
Nah. But I bet she would’ve known the difference if Daunte wasn’t a Black boy or if he was her loved one.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) April 14, 2021
Bush is a Black Lives Matter activist who previously called former President Donald Trump “the white supremacist in chief” on the House floor during his impeachment proceedings, Fox News reported. (Related: Officer Who Shot And Killed Daunte Wright Was 26-Year-Veteran, Was Involved In Another Fatal Shooting In 2019)
The claims that Potter intended to use a taser is the 18th time in the past two decades that police officers have said they used the wrong weapon, according to The Wall Street Journal. Law enforcement officials and researchers told the WSJ that it is difficult to mistake the two weapons due to a taser’s bright colors, the weight in comparison to a gun, and because officer’s wear them on different sides of their belts.
Greg Meyer, a former Los Angeles officer that studies use-of-force scenarios, said it is evident that Potter meant to use the taser since she only fired one shot.
“In a Taser situation, it can only fire one at a time, so when we have one of these weapons confusion cases that’s kind of the big clue,” Meyer told the WSJ.
In the first three months of 2021, 30 out of the 231 civilians shot by police were black, according to Statista. The rate of police shootings against black people had shown to be higher than any other ethnic group with 35 fatal shootings per million in March 2021.
Potter and Gannon both resigned from the police force Tuesday.
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