In memoriam. Mourners for police-shooting victim Daunte Wright were moved, many to their feet as speed-artist Ange Hillz painted a portrait as trumpeter Keyon Harrold played “Amazing Grace” and “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”
Clerical, political leaders urge policing reforms
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – Civil rights preacher-activist Al Sharpton, drew on his most booming oratory to euologize 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who was shot by a white police officer in a traffic stop 1-1/2 weeks ago. About Wright being gigged for an air-freshener hanging from his rearvew mirror, a misdemeanor in Minnesota, Sharpton said Wright wasn’t “just some kid with an air freshener” but a “prince.” The word “prince” electrified the mourners. Sharpton kept up his allusions to Minnesota: “We come today as the air fresheners for Minnesota. We’re trying to get the stench of police brutality out of the atmosphere. We’re trying to get the stench of racism out of the atmosphere. We’re trying to get the stench of racial profiling out of the atmosphere. We come to Minnesota as air fresheners because your air is too odorous for us to breathe.” These were references to previous victims of fatal police brutality in Minnesota, George Floyd and Philando Castile and others. The Floyd and Castile families were at the service. Said Sharpton: “We can’t breathe in your stinking air no more!” Sharpton called for laws to curb policing excesses. “The absence of justice is the absence of peace,” Sharpton said. “You can’t tell us to shut up and suffer. We must speak up when there is an injustice.”
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Sharpton. Hundreds of people wearing Covid masks packed into Shiloh Temple International Ministries to remember Wright, father to a 1-year-old son. Among civic leaders on the podium: U.S. Senators Am Klobuchar and Tina Smith, Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar .