Daunte Wright had a warrant out for his arrest for attempted aggravated robbery charges after 'choking and holding a woman at gunpoint for $820 in 2019', court papers revealDaunte Wright choked a woman and threatened to shoot her if she did not hand over $820 she had stuffed in her bra, court papers obtained by DailyMail.com allege.
That is the case that led to a warrant for his arrest at the time he was shot and killed by police officer Kimberly Potter in Minnesota on Sunday, leading to days of unrest.
And online speculation that he did not know there was a warrant out for his arrest is false, DailyMail.com has learned. A letter returned to the court for having a wrong address was giving notice of a court date in August and had nothing to do with the warrant.
Wright, 20, was shot dead in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Sunday by Potter, 48, a 26-year veteran in the Brooklyn Center Police Department.
She says she mistakenly grabbed her gun instead of her taser. After the gun fired, she is heard on body camera saying: 'Holy s**t I shot him.' Potter and Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon both resigned on Tuesday.
Wright was allegedly pulled over for having expired license plate tags, although he called his mother and told her it was for having an air freshener hanging on his rear-view mirror. While checking his details, Potter and other officers learned of the warrant.
When they tried to handcuff him, Wright got back into his car and at that point Potter shot him in the chest after warning fellow officers to get out of the way by shouting, 'Taser, taser, taser.'
Wright was due to face trial on a charge of attempted aggravated robbery - with a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Charging papers say he and a second man, Emajay Driver went to a home shared by two women in Osseo, Minnesota 'to party' in December 2019. At the time, Wright was 19 and Driver was 18.
The women asked them to leave around 2.30 am on December 1, but they said they didn't have a ride and the women - who are not identified in the court documents - allowed them to sleep on the floor.
In the morning, one of the women went to the bank to get her $820 rent money which she gave to the other woman and then left for work. As Wright, Driver and the second woman were leaving, Wright allegedly tried to hold up the woman.
'The three of them were walking to the door to exit the apartment and defendant Wright turned around and blocked the door preventing victim from leaving,' says the report, written by Osseo Police Officer Shane Mikkelson.
Defendant Wright then pulled a black handgun with silver trim out from either his right waistband or his right coat pocket and pointed it at victim and demanded the rent money,' continued Mikkelson.
'Victim said "Are you serious?" Defendant Wright replied: "Give me the f**king money, I know you have it."
When the woman again asked him if he was serious, Wright is said to have replied: 'I'm not playing around.'
Mikkelson's report said: 'The $820 cash was tucked in the victim's bra and defendant Wright placed his hand around victim's neck and choked her while trying to pull the cash from under her bra.
'Victim was able to get loose from defendant Wright and started to kneel down and scream.'
After more yelling, Wright allegedly told the woman that he was going to shoot her unless he got the money.
'Give me the money and we will leave,' he allegedly said. 'Give me the money and we will go.'
Mikkelson added: 'Defendant Wright then tried to choke victim a second time and tried to take her money. Defendant Driver was telling her to give defendant Wright the money.
'Defendant Driver then said: "Let's go," and the two defendants left and got into a white Cadillac and left the scene,' wrote Mikkelson.
'Afterwards, victim found that the cash was still in her bra.'
Mikkelson said the woman identified both Wright and Driver through photo line-ups.
Wright's bail was originally set at $100,000 with orders that he should not contact the victim or any witnesses, refrain from drugs and alcohol and not have any weapons. A bond bailsman paid $40,000 for his release.
But his bail was revoked in July last year due to his 'failure to not possess a firearm or ammunition' and not keeping in touch with his probation officer, court papers show.
At that time a judge issued a warrant for his arrest, that was still outstanding on the day he died.
In recent days several people have claimed on the Internet that Wright may not even have known about the warrant because it was sent to the wrong address and returned to the court by the US Postal Service.
But that letter, sent out on February 2 and returned to the court three days later was just to advise Wright of a change of date for his court hearing.
It was sent to an address in Minneapolis and marked 'Return to Sender. No such number. Unable to forward' by the USPS.
Wright's killing, just 10 miles from the scene of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis last May, has led to unrest in Minnesota and nationwide.
Overnight protests broke out in New York, Washington, D.C., Portland, Seattle and elsewhere.
Police officer Potter's five-bedroom home was surrounded by cops unloading barricades on Tuesday after her address was leaked online.
A police source told DailyMail.com that they anticipate protests later and said they are taking precautions to prevent the home being wrecked.
'We learned from [Derek] Chauvin. His house got totally smashed up in the protests,' the source said.
Potter left the property late last night with her 54-year-old husband Jeff and their sons Sam and Nick.
Jeff Potter, retired from cop work with the Police Department in Fridley, Minnesota, in 2017 after 26 years. He now works as a corporate investigator at Allina Health. A relative was also spotted at the home on Tuesday morning, taking a series of cardboard boxes out of the property and loading it into their car.
Police sources told DailyMail.com that Potter and her family have left the area entirely.
In an interview with Good Morning America on Tuesday, Wright's parents Katie and Aubrey said they could not accept their son's death was a mistake.
'I cannot accept that. I lost my son, he's never coming back. I can't accept a mistake, that doesn't even sound right,' Aubrey said.
'This officer has been on the force for 26 years.'
Wright's mother added that she wants Potter to be held accountable for 'everything she's taken from us'.
His aunt, Naisha Wright, had earlier called for Potter to be jailed for 'not knowing the difference between a fully loaded pistol and a taser'.
'Accident? An accident? No, come on now! I own a 20,000 volt taser. They don't feel nothing like a gun,' she told CNN. 'My family's blood is on their hands.'
Naisha has denied that her nephew's license plate tag was expired, as police have said. She also said a misdemeanor warrant that was out for her nephew was 'just for some weed'.
Wright's shooting death has sparked violent protests and unrest in the city that is already on edge because of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd's death.
Police Chief Tim Gannon released footage of the incident from Potter's bodycam that showed her and two other officers approaching Wright's car after he had been pulled over for the traffic stop.
The footage showed one officer trying to handcuff Wright as a second officer told him he was being arrested on a warrant. Wright immediately jumped back into his car in an apparent attempt to flee.
A struggle then broke out between the officers and Wright, who was still sitting inside his car.
'I'll Tase you! I'll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!' Potter could be heard shouting in her bodycam video.
Immediately after, Potter can be heard saying: 'Holy sh*t. I shot him'.
Potter and Tim Gannon both resigned on Tuesday amid mounting pressure for Potter to step down.
In her resignation letter, Potter - who has worked for the department for 26 years - did not address the deadly shooting that has sparked two days of violent protests and unrest across the city.
'I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,' Potter said.
Potter, a married mother-of-two, had been on administrative leave since the shooting.
Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliot also announced the resignation of Potter's police chief boss.
Gannon was the one who revealed during a tense press conference a day earlier that Wright's death was the result of 'accidental discharge' after Potter mistook her taser for a gun.
The resignations came as pressure mounted for Potter to be fired, including from Mayor Elliot.
Authorities have not confirmed the nature of the warrant but court records show Wright was being sought after failing to appear in court last month on misdemeanor charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police last June.
His aunt has said the warrant was for marijuana possession.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is the agency investigating Wright's death.
Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who helped the family of George Floyd win a $27million legal settlement against the city of Minneapolis, is also representing the Wrights.
In a tweet, Crump said he believed that Potter 'knew exactly what she was doing' in a previous case which he said she told officers how to 'obscure accountability'.
He wrote about the previous incident involving Dimock-Heisler and Potter, saying she 'taught officers who fatally shot Kobe Dimock-Heisler how to protect themselves & obscure accountability'.
Crump, quoting a Hennepin County Attorney's Office report, wrote that Potter had previously instructed two police officers in the previous case to 'exit the residence, get into separate squad cars, turn off their body worn camera, and to not talk to eаch other.
'Of course Kim Potter knew exactly what she was doing. She knew how to obscure the truth. In that instance, her actions were clearly intentional,' he wrote.
Wright's mother Katie Wright has previously described her son calling her in the moments before he was shot to say police had pulled him over for having air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror.
It is illegal in Minnesota to have anything hanging from a rear-view mirror.
She said he called her to get insurance information for the vehicle because she recently gave the car to him.
Describing the call, Wright's mother said: 'I said when the police officer comes back to the window, put him on the phone and I will give him the insurance information.
'Then I heard the police officer come to the window and say, 'Put the phone down and get out of the car.' And Wright said 'why'. He said, 'We'll explain to you when you get out of the car.''
'A minute later, I called and his girlfriend answered, who was the passenger in the car, and said that he'd been shot and she put it on the driver's side, and he was laying there lifeless,' Katie told gathered media on Sunday afternoon.
'I heard scuffling, and I heard police officers say, 'Daunte, don't run,'' she said through tears. The call ended, and she dialed his number again. His girlfriend answered and said he was dead in the driver's seat.
Speaking before the unrest broke out, Wright's mother had urged protesters to stay peaceful and remain focused on the loss of her son.
'All the violence, if it keeps going, it's only going to be about the violence. We need it to be about why my son got shot for no reason,' she said to a crowd near the shooting scene in Brooklyn Center.
'We need to make sure it's about him and not about smashing police cars, because that's not going to bring my son back.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9467375/Daunte-Wright-warrant-arrest-attempted-aggravated-robbery-charges.html
