The City of Brooklyn Center, Mn. agreed to pay a $3.25 million settlement to the family of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man fatally shot by a white police officer during a traffic stop, Axios reports. Wright's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit after the April 2021 shooting near Minneapolis by former police officer Kim Potter, who is serving a two-year prison sentence after being convicted of manslaughter. The settlement will not be finalized until agreement is also reached on "substantial and meaningful monetary relief," said attorneys for Wright's family. The attorneys anticipate that the relief will include training for the city's police department on officer intervention, implicit bias, weapons confusion, de-escalation and mental health crises.
Last December, Potter was found guilty of first- and second- degree manslaughter. Her team argued that the former officer inadvertently pulled out her gun instead of a Taser after Wright tried to flee the encounter. "Nothing can explain or fill the emptiness in our lives without Daunte or our continued grief at the senselessness way he died," said Wright's parents. They said it was important that their loss be used for positive change in the community, not just to receive financial compensation.