Families of Duante Wright, George Floyd call for justice

Wright was shot on Sunday (April 11) after being pulled over for what police said was an expired car registration. Officers then discovered there was a warrant out for his arrest, and an officer accidentally drew her pistol instead of her Taser during a struggle with Wright, who re-entered his car, the police chief in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, Tim Gannon said on Monday. The officer was later identified as Kim Potter, who can be heard on police video shouting, "Holy shit, I just shot him."

Outside of the Minneapolis courthouse on Tuesday (April 13), family members recounted the events that led to Wright's death at a press conference with their attorney Ben Crump.

Wright's mother said her son called her after he was pulled over on Sunday and said he was being stopped because he had air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror, which is illegal in the state.

After offering to mediate, the mother said she heard an officer asking a confused Wright to get out of the vehicle and then scuffling and an officer asking her son to hang up the phone. She said she kept calling him back, to no avail.

She said the girl in the car with her son eventually picked up the phone and, amid cries and screams, told her Daunte had been shot. "She pointed the phone toward the driver's seat and my son was laying there, unresponsive," Katie Wright said as she wept. "That was the last time that I've seen my son."

Wright was killed just 10 miles (16 km) from where Floyd, 46, lost his life while under arrest for allegedly passing a bogus $20 bill, unleashing a months-long nationwide upheaval of protests against racial injustice and police brutality.