Brooklyn Center officer, chief resign following killing of Wright

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The Brooklyn Center police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop Sunday, has resigned.

Kim Potter, a 26-year police veteran, along with police chief Tim Gannon both stepped down after The Brooklyn Center City Council passed a non-binding recommendation to fire them.

While Washington County Attorney Pete Orput is reviewing the case for possible charges, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said Tuesday he wants Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to handle Wright’s case. Ellison’s office is currently overseeing the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the ex-Minneapolis police officer on trial now for murder and manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd.

Ben Crump, the attorney who reached a $27 million settlement with the city of Minneapolis for the family of George Floyd, said today he’s now representing the family of Daunte Wright.

Derek Chauvin’s defense team began calling witnesses in the trial. Among them is Barry Brodd, a former police officer and expert on the use of force.

Brodd said, in his estimation, Chauvin’s actions last May, when he knelt on George Floyd’s neck, were in keeping with his training. Brodd said that Chauvin had not used deadly force on Floyd — using the example of someone who is shocked with a Taser by an officer and then hits their head and dies, which Brodd said qualifies as an accidental death.

He further claimed that the officers who responded to the call at Cup Foods in Minneapolis were more gentle than they needed to be. He said he doesn’t count being placed in the “prone position” as force at all -- and as Floyd struggled, he said they would have been justified in going to more extreme lengths to subdue him. Brodd had previously appeared as an expert witness for the defense of former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke who was convicted of murder, for shooting and killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014 — another young Black man.

Minnesota health officials are asking providers to pause their distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The CDC and FDA are reviewing data about rare instances in which a handful of people who got the vaccine reported developing blood clots. At a press conference today, Gov. Tim Walz says he expects the rollout of the other available COVID vaccines to keep moving at a steady pace.

It’s important to emphasize that the cases of blood clots after getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are incredibly rare. Just six cases have been reported, out of six point eight million doses administered in the U.S.

All six cases happened in women between the ages of 18 and 48 — and the state Health Department says it is not aware of any cases among the 184,000 Minnesotans who have been given the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.