Two months after Daunte Wright was killed at the hands of former police officer Kim Potter, city officials in Brooklyn Center have passed a bill that will "transform public safety" in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Last week, the Brooklyn Center City Council approved the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety & Violence Prevention Act by a vote of 4-1.
“This will transform public safety in our city, honoring two young men who were robbed of their futures,” Brooklyn Center Mike Elliott tweeted.
“This is just the first step in a long road ahead ― but that is work that we as a city are ready to do with our community. There will be lots of questions to answer, lots of learning, and lots of opportunity for the community to be at the center of this change.”
The newly passed bill will create more regulation for use-of-force incidents involving police and a plan that would distribute citations for low-level offenses instead of arrests. Also, the act creates an unarmed task force that will respond to mental health calls and enlists unarmed enforcement officers that respond to traffic violations.
“It is time,” Brooklyn Center Councilmember Marquita Butler told the Star-Tribune.
“We’ve been talking about these reforms for quite a while, more specifically since last June, after the death of George Floyd. And we didn’t have as much urgency around it as we probably should have."
The city council approved the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety & Violence Prevention Act days before Kim Potter was set to appear in court yet again. Charged with second-degree manslaughter, Potter will appear before a judge for her omnibus hearing. Pretrial hearings such as these are put together to go over evidence and determine if there is enough probable cause to move forward with her case. If tried and convicted of second-degree manslaughter, she faces upwards of a decade in prison.
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