Katie Wright.Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty
Katie Ann Wrightspoke to reporters during a Thursday press conference, recalling her interaction the day before with an Brooklyn Center police officer.
“I don’t want a police officer like that patrolling our community,” Wright said. “He escalated a situation that didn’t need to be escalated. I was only doing what was right and what everyone else should do.”
Katie Wright says she was driving home after appearing on a radio show when she noticed a “high police presence” around a stopped vehicle. She said she saw at least one person in the pulled over car, and believed that person to be in their 20s.
She pulled over along the side of Highway 252 to film the traffic stop with her phone.
Police body camera footage released Thursday shows the man’s arrest. While the man is being arrested, the man is heard telling police, “I don’t wanna be on that camera over there. She’s recording over there, I don’t want my face on camera because I don’t know what the f—’s going on.”
It is unclear if the man was referring to Wright.
After the man says this, an officer crosses the highway, telling his colleagues he’s going to issue Wright a ticket.
As he approaches Wright, the officer asks for her driver’s license. When she refuses, he tells her “I’m going to take you to jail for obstruction.”
Daunte Wright.
Wright is seen sitting behind the wheel, with her driver’s door open and her legs outside the vehicle. The officer then puts his hand on Wright’s wrist to pull her up, and takes the cell phone out of her hands.
As he starts to lead her away from her car, Wright tells the officer who she is. “You guys killed my sonand I’m gonna videotape it,” she says, pointing toward the traffic stop. “And if you take me to jail, I’m going to sue you.”
The officer advises that he’ll mail her the ticket, and she tells him to. “Do not ever touch me again,” she says.
Speaking to CNN, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot said that he was “really sad to see how Ms. Wright was treated,” and noted it “seemed unnecessary” for the police “to approach Ms. Wright” in that particular situation, given it “had largely subsided.”
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Elliot tells CNN the officer’s actions are under review.
The ACLU of Minnesota’s websitenotes individuals “have the right to record police actions as long as you do not interfere with their activities and are not breaking any other law.”
At Katie Wright’s press conference, she said she did nothing to deserve the treatment she received from the officer.
“All I was doing was my civic duty to pull over and make sure that those babies got home safe to their families,” she explained, “because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other families.”
Wednesday’s incident came less than three months afterKim Potter, a former Brooklyn Center police officer, wassentencedtotwo years in prisonfor Daunte Wright’s April 11, 2021, shooting death.
source: people.com
