BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — A fourth night of protests was underway in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and around the nation Wednesday over the death of 21-year-old Daunte Wright after a police officer fatally shot him.
Brooklyn Center announced a curfew of 10 p.m. Wednesday Mayor Mike Elliott urged people to protest without violence, saying “your voices have been heard” earlier in the day.
A crowd of a few hundred demonstrators had gathered outside the Brooklyn Center police headquarters for a tense night. Video showed one protester carrying the head of a fake pig on a pole near a fence outside the heavily guarded station as police monitored the crowd from the structure’s rooftop.
Police had already started firing rubber bullets and tear gas. Casey Clements, 30, was shot in the waist while by the fence.
“That’ll add to the zip-tie bruises I got the other night,” he told USA TODAY as he was tended to by a medic.
He added that he’s a student who is protesting “because I feel like I need to protect the people here,” he said, gesturing to the other protesters.
Outside former police officer Kim Potter’s home in Champlin, Minnesota, north of Brooklyn Center, concrete barricades and tall metal fencing had been set up and police cars were in the driveway. After George Floyd’s death last year, protesters demonstrated several times at the home of Derek Chauvin, the ex-Minneapolis officer now on trial in Floyd’s death.
Potter, the officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright at a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb, is a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department. She was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree manslaughter, officials said.
Kim Potter faces prison time, fine if convicted of second-degree manslaughter in shooting death of Daunte Wright
‘Another senseless tragedy’:Barack and Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, more speak out on Daunte Wright
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Potter was arrested Wednesday morning. Hours later, she posted $100,000 bond and was released from the Hennepin County jail, online records showed.
Potter is scheduled for an initial court appearance on Thursday afternoon.
If found guilty, she faces up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, according to Minnesota law.
Protesters in Columbus, Ohio, conducted a “sit-in” in front of police department headquarters, video showed Wednesday night.
A group of protesters forced their way into headquarters in the city Tuesday night through a set of double doors that had been secured on the interior with handcuffs. A photograph of the handcuffs shows evidence of force being used to open them.
An Ohio State University student from northwestern Ohio was arrested for hitting a police sergeant with a wooden club.
The protest was peaceful up until then, police said.
Contributing: Ryan W. Miller and Eric Ferkenhoff, USA TODAY; Eric Lagatta and Bethany Bruner, The Columbus Dispatch; The Associated Press
