More Training and Experience Aren’t the Cure

Article

Apr 13

The latest police shooting reveals the truth in what organizers have long said: Experience and training are not a cure for brutality.

On Sunday, a police officer in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who she had pulled over during a traffic stop for expired registration tags (and perhaps for having an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror). The police chief, upon reviewing footage of the killing, called it an “accidental discharge” and said he believed the officer was trying to tase Wright and instead shot him with her gun.

The officer who shot Wright has since been identified as Kim Potter: a 26-year veteran of the force and president of the police union. “In that role, she has represented other officers involved in deadly shootings,” Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP reported. Her case underscores a point that activists and advocates have repeatedly made: When violence is seen as an appropriate response to everyday interactions, no amount of experience or knowledge will prevent shootings.

“The Daunte Wright case obliterates the argument that the answer is more training & bodycams,” activist and filmmaker Bree Newsome Bass wrote on Twitter. “All we’re left with is the increasingly feeble propaganda of having Black LEO [law enforcement officer] spokespeople say we can reform policing without offering a tangible example of how.” Many activists continue to call for defunding the police instead.

Meanwhile, the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who is being tried for killing George Floyd last May, is ongoing. Like Potter, Chauvin can’t claim to be a rookie. He had been with his department for 19 years.