The Brooklyn Center City Council was presented with the plans for the memorial site to Daunte Wright Monday evening. The memorial was part of the settlement Brooklyn Center reached with Wright’s family, and was designed by Juxtaposition Arts.
21-year-old Wright was killed on April 11, 2021, by Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter, who shot him once in the chest during a traffic stop while mistaking her gun for her taser. Potter was charged with first and second degree manslaughter and served 16 months before being released earlier this year.
“We collaborated with the Wright family and Juxtaposition Arts for purposes of trying to address the feeling, and the trauma and the pain of a family and the mother and the father who had lost a son”said Brooklyn Center City Manager Dr. Reggie Edwards. “And that it would be done in a way that would, in some way out of a tragedy, lift up a community.”
The memorial is set to be built at the intersection of 63rd Avenue and Kathrene Drive, where Wright was killed. It will consist of a steel portrait of Wright, with his hair curled into a variety of symbols, including a crown, a fist, and an infinity sign. It will be placed on a granite base with a plaque and a basin.
The city had previously planned to remove a makeshift memorial made for Wright after his death, prompting public outcry from the family and community members. The City Council relented soon after. Installation of the permanent memorial is set to begin mid-August.
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