At the funeral services for Daunte Wright in north Minneapolis Thursday, family emotionally recalled the 20-year-old father who was shot and killed by Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter April 11, setting off a week of tense protests, as someone who lit up a room with his smile and humor.
A white casket with red roses sat at the front of Shiloh Temple Ministries as a large crowd of mourners came to pay their respects. Daunte’s mother, Katie Wright, said Daunte was excited to become a father to Daunte Jr. who’s not yet 2 years old.
“I never thought I would be standing here,” Katie Wright said through tears. “The roles should completely be reversed. My son should be burying me. My son had a smile that was worth $1 million. When he walked in the room he lit up the room. He was a brother, a jokester. He was loved by so many. He’s going to be so missed.”
Daunte’s older sister Monica and older brother Dallas described the gravity of Daunte’s loss.
“I didn’t get to tell him I loved him before he left,” Monica Wright said. “He didn’t deserve this. He was so loved by everybody.”
“Every holiday is not going to be the same anymore without him being here,” Dallas said. “He was literally the life of the party. When he came in, his smile, his laugh. His laugh was really contagious. I am going to miss this man so much because he was my best friend through thick and thin, through all the late night conversations we had about him trying to better himself as a man and the man he wanted to be for junior. He talked for hours on it and he was doing it and I was so proud of the man he was becoming.”
Wright family attorney Ben Crump announced the families of Emmett Till, George Floyd, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Jamar Clark and Oscar Grant -- who was killed by a police officer in the Bay Area in 2009 when the officer said he mistook his taser for a gun -- were in attendance.
While the service celebrated Daunte’s life it was also inextricably tied to racial injustice and police reform coming days after the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Civil rights icon Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy.
“The time has come for police to understand that they’re not above the law,” Sharpton said. “They’re to enforce the law. And if you can’t live up to the badge don’t take the oath and put it on. When we put that badge on you, we expect you to act like somebody that is civilized and respectful.”
Elected leaders Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Sen. Tina Smith and Sen. Amy Klobuchar were also present. Klobuchar called for banning chokeholds nationwide and for passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.