At the point of a gun

See updates through April 25, 2021, at end of post.


Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police are offering up the same excuse for killing Daunte Wright[1] that San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police offered for the killing of Oscar Grant, specifically that the killer cop mistook her gun for her taser.[2]


(I misgendered the cop who shot Wright, but Twitter does not allow tweets to be edited.)

If you’re wondering how a cop mistakes one weapon, which feels very different from the other, for the other, one answer is that it doesn’t happen very often.[3] And in the case of Grant, shot on a platform at the Fruitvale BART station in east Oakland, California, a BART internal investigation cast doubt on this defense.[4] So the excuse is, at best, suspect:

[Tasers] can be easily distinguished from handguns, according to a statement Monday by the maker of Tasers, Axon Enterprise.

Tasers have different grips and are lighter than pistols, and the weapons have an LED screen that lights up when the safety is turned off. Some Tasers are bright yellow, but the weapon is also available in black.

“Axon also specifically warns of the possibility of weapon confusion and provides training recommendations to mitigate against it. Based on recommendations by use of force experts, Axon recommends that a TASER energy weapon be placed on an officer’s non-dominant side, and firearm on the dominant side,” the statement read.

The Brooklyn Center Police Department policy manual says officers must complete training before using the Taser, and must carry it in an approved holster and on the opposite hip as their firearm. The manual does not dictate which side of the body officers must wear the Taser, although chief Gannon on Monday said officers are trained to wear the Taser according to which hand is dominant.[5]

Wright was stopped for an expired vehicle registration. Then the cop, Kim Potter, saw an air freshener dangling from Wright’s rear view mirror.[6] The first of these is an infraction of poverty; the second, an infraction so rarely enforced that the occasion where it is enforced demands the strictest of scrutiny.

A routine check apparently yielded an outstanding “gross misdemeanor warrant” for Wright’s arrest,[7] but

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said it had “deep concerns that police here appear to have used dangling air fresheners as an excuse for making a pretextual stop, something police do all too often to target Black people.”

“While we are waiting to learn more, we must reiterate that police violence and killings of people of color must end, as must the over-policing and racial profiling that are endemic to our white supremacist system of policing,” it said.[8]

And a man is dead. Another Black man in a very long list of Blacks killed by cops in a series of killings that cops absolutely refuse accountability for,[9] while expecting us to believe they are not racist, let alone white supremacist, that there is nothing systemic in these killings or police harassment of Blacks generally, that at worst, there are a “few bad apples” among police.[10]

At some point, you have to turn this around and ask, what if. What if the shoe was on the other foot? Would we be so forgiving of Blacks as we are of cops? It’s already obvious that the answer to that question is, of course, not. Because we already aren’t.

But if we aren’t, then how can you call this “justice?”

And if you cannot call it “justice,” then why should Blacks or anyone else accept the police as legitimate, as having any authority whatsoever besides the point of a gun?


Update, April 15, 2021: Comparing the gun Kim Potter was carrying when she killed Daunte Wright with a Taser,

“A Glock is a very lightweight handgun,” said Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith, spokeswoman for the National Police Association and a retired 29-year veteran of the Naperville Police Department in Illinois. “But a Taser is heavier than you think.”

Still, while the grips on the Glocks and Tasers are made from a similar type of polymer, Glocks have a trigger safety while Tasers do not.

“They feel differently in your hands,” said Dennis Kenney, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and a former Florida police officer.

Also, most police departments, including Brooklyn Center, require that officers carry their guns on their dominant side and Tasers on the opposite side to lower the risk of confusing the two weapons, the experts said. That’s also what Axon, the maker of the Taser, recommends.

“You can tell from the video that the Brooklyn Center officers were doing that,“ Smith said.

So what’s more likely, Smith said, is that Potter experienced something called “slip and capture.”

“It’s not like she looked at her gun and thought it was a Taser,” Smith said. “It’s a horrible, horrible motor glitch that could happen in high-stress situations. I liken it to when you get into a rental car and go to start it up, you automatically reach for what’s familiar to you before realizing that you’re not in your car. The same issue could have happened here with the Taser.”[11]

But there’s also the question of whether this traffic stop needed to have been made at all:

After viewing the video footage of Wright’s last moments, the experts told NBC News they saw other deficiencies in how the traffic stop was handled.

“If this was a normal traffic stop, then why were there three officers there,” [Dennis] Kenney said. “And given what’s [possibly referring to the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the killing of Oscar Grant[12]] been going on, why make a traffic stop at all?”[13]

Something I noticed early in the COVID-19 pandemic around Pittsburgh was that three police cars would routinely appear at traffic stops. Given how rarely I see anybody pulled over for anything around Pittsburgh, to all of a sudden see this frequently seemed heavy-handed, but I’m guessing these cops didn’t have anything else to do, which might also explain why this stop of Daunte Wright was made in the first place.


Update, April 22, 2021: A larger question in the aftermath of Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd[14] is whether politicians will go beyond symbolic gestures and follow through on what so far have been empty promises of police ‘reform,’[15] itself a woefully inadequate approach.[16] Too many people are calling this conviction ‘justice,’ when justice would mean that Floyd would still be alive and breathing;[17] that the systemic and blatant white supremacy in policing that killed him and so many others[18] had been abolished; that the economic injustice[19] and the systemic bigotry of the criminal injustice system that sends so many people, particularly of color,[20] into a largely ineffective but hugely damaging system of mass incarceration[21] had been remedied; and frankly, that reparations had been paid, not only to Blacks,[22] but really to all colonized people, defined in critical theory as all who are subject to the structural or overt, implicit or explicit violence of economic, political, military, or religious authority,[23] who pay with their lives in countless ways for the curtailment of their potential and the deprivation of their rights[24] so that the rich may be richer and the powerful more powerful.


Update, April 25, 2021: Even as Derek Chauvin was convicted for the killing of George Floyd,[25] police around the country continued killing people.[26] Which shouldn’t surprise anyone.[27]

  1. [1]British Broadcasting Corporation, “Daunte Wright shooting: Officer ‘mistook gun for Taser,’” April 13, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56724798
  2. [2]Erin Baldassari, “Oscar Grant: BART’s internal investigation reveals cops’ roles in fatal shooting,” San Jose Mercury News, May 1, 2019, https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/01/oscar-grant-barts-internal-investigation-reveals-cops-roles-in-fatal-shooting/; Matt McKinney, “Cases in which a service pistol is mistaken for a Taser are rare,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 12, 2021, https://www.startribune.com/cases-in-which-a-service-pistol-is-mistaken-for-a-taser-are-rare/600045269/
  3. [3]Matt McKinney, “Cases in which a service pistol is mistaken for a Taser are rare,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 12, 2021, https://www.startribune.com/cases-in-which-a-service-pistol-is-mistaken-for-a-taser-are-rare/600045269/
  4. [4]Erin Baldassari, “Oscar Grant: BART’s internal investigation reveals cops’ roles in fatal shooting,” San Jose Mercury News, May 1, 2019, https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/01/oscar-grant-barts-internal-investigation-reveals-cops-roles-in-fatal-shooting/
  5. [5]Matt McKinney, “Cases in which a service pistol is mistaken for a Taser are rare,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 12, 2021, https://www.startribune.com/cases-in-which-a-service-pistol-is-mistaken-for-a-taser-are-rare/600045269/
  6. [6]Corky Siemaszko, “Daunte Wright was stopped for expired plates, but driving while Black may have been his ‘crime,’” NBC News, April 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daunte-wright-was-stopped-expired-plates-driving-while-black-may-n1263878
  7. [7]Corky Siemaszko, “Daunte Wright was stopped for expired plates, but driving while Black may have been his ‘crime,’” NBC News, April 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daunte-wright-was-stopped-expired-plates-driving-while-black-may-n1263878
  8. [8]Corky Siemaszko, “Daunte Wright was stopped for expired plates, but driving while Black may have been his ‘crime,’” NBC News, April 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daunte-wright-was-stopped-expired-plates-driving-while-black-may-n1263878
  9. [9]David Benfell, “Time to take the guns away,” Not Housebroken, January 6, 2015, https://disunitedstates.org/2015/01/04/time-to-take-the-guns-away/
  10. [10]Mark Berman et al., “Protests spread over police shootings. Police promised reforms. Every year, they still shoot and kill nearly 1,000 people,” Washington Post, June 8, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/protests-spread-over-police-shootings-police-promised-reforms-every-year-they-still-shoot-nearly-1000-people/2020/06/08/5c204f0c-a67c-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html; Kyle Cheney, Sarah Ferris, and Laura Barrón-López, “‘Inside job’: House Dems ask if Capitol rioters had hidden help,” Politico, January 8, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/08/congress-democrats-capitol-riot-inside-job-456725; Tim Craig, “Proud Boys and Black Lives Matter activists clashed in a Florida suburb. Only one side was charged,” Washington Post, February 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/florida-protest-bill-unequal-treatment/2021/02/01/415d1b02-6240-11eb-9061-07abcc1f9229_story.html; James Downie, “Time to toss the ‘bad apples’ excuse,” Washington Post, May 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/31/time-toss-bad-apples-excuse/; Kimberly Kindy, Mark Berman, and Kim Bellware, “After Capitol riot, police chiefs work to root out officers with ties to extremist groups,” Washington Post, January 24, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/police-capitol-riot-extremists/2021/01/24/16fdb2bc-5a7b-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html; Maggie Koerth, “The Police’s Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn’t An Aberration,” FiveThirtyEight, January 7, 2021, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/; Kurtis Lee, Jaweed Kaleem, and Laura King, “‘White supremacy was on full display.’ Double standard seen in police response to riot at Capitol,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-07/la-na-washington-capitol-police-attack-race; Wesley Lowery, “Aren’t more white people than black people killed by police? Yes, but no,” Washington Post, July 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/; Brentin Mock, “What New Research Says About Race and Police Shootings,” CityLab, August 6, 2019, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/; Elie Mystal, “There’s Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops,” Nation, May 27, 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/white-america-cops/; Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “How Do We Change America?” New Yorker, June 8, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-do-we-change-america
  11. [11]Corky Siemaszko, “How a veteran officer could have mistaken a Glock for a Taser in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright,” NBC News, April 13, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-veteran-officer-could-have-mistaken-glock-taser-fatal-shooting-n1263976
  12. [12]Corky Siemaszko, “Daunte Wright was stopped for expired plates, but driving while Black may have been his ‘crime,’” NBC News, April 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daunte-wright-was-stopped-expired-plates-driving-while-black-may-n1263878
  13. [13]Corky Siemaszko, “How a veteran officer could have mistaken a Glock for a Taser in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright,” NBC News, April 13, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-veteran-officer-could-have-mistaken-glock-taser-fatal-shooting-n1263976
  14. [14]Kurtis Lee, “Derek Chauvin is guilty of murdering George Floyd,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-04-20/jury-verdict-derek-chauvin-george-floyd-death
  15. [15]Arelis R. Hernández and Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., “Black Americans are buoyed by Chauvin conviction, but they worry it will blunt pace of reform,” Washington Post, April 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/20/chauvin-verdict-black-americans/
  16. [16]Amanda Arnold, “What Exactly Does It Mean to Defund the Police?” Cut, June 12, 2020, https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-the-phrase-explained.html; Zak Cheney-Rice, “Why Police Abolition Is a Useful Framework — Even for Skeptics,” New York, June 15, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/police-abolitionist-lessons-for-america.html
  17. [17]Jeet Heer, “How Not to Mourn George Floyd,” The Time of Monsters, April 21, 2021, https://jeetheer.substack.com/p/how-not-to-mourn-george-floyd
  18. [18]Mark Berman et al., “Protests spread over police shootings. Police promised reforms. Every year, they still shoot and kill nearly 1,000 people,” Washington Post, June 8, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/protests-spread-over-police-shootings-police-promised-reforms-every-year-they-still-shoot-nearly-1000-people/2020/06/08/5c204f0c-a67c-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html; Kyle Cheney, Sarah Ferris, and Laura Barrón-López, “‘Inside job’: House Dems ask if Capitol rioters had hidden help,” Politico, January 8, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/08/congress-democrats-capitol-riot-inside-job-456725; Tim Craig, “Proud Boys and Black Lives Matter activists clashed in a Florida suburb. Only one side was charged,” Washington Post, February 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/florida-protest-bill-unequal-treatment/2021/02/01/415d1b02-6240-11eb-9061-07abcc1f9229_story.html; James Downie, “Time to toss the ‘bad apples’ excuse,” Washington Post, May 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/31/time-toss-bad-apples-excuse/; Kimberly Kindy, Mark Berman, and Kim Bellware, “After Capitol riot, police chiefs work to root out officers with ties to extremist groups,” Washington Post, January 24, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/police-capitol-riot-extremists/2021/01/24/16fdb2bc-5a7b-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html; Maggie Koerth, “The Police’s Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn’t An Aberration,” FiveThirtyEight, January 7, 2021, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/; Kurtis Lee, Jaweed Kaleem, and Laura King, “‘White supremacy was on full display.’ Double standard seen in police response to riot at Capitol,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-07/la-na-washington-capitol-police-attack-race; German Lopez, “Police officers are prosecuted for murder in less than 2 percent of fatal shootings,” Vox, April 2, 2021, https://www.vox.com/21497089/derek-chauvin-george-floyd-trial-police-prosecutions-black-lives-matter; Wesley Lowery, “Aren’t more white people than black people killed by police? Yes, but no,” Washington Post, July 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/; Brentin Mock, “What New Research Says About Race and Police Shootings,” CityLab, August 6, 2019, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shootings-gun-violence-racial-bias-crime-data/595528/; Elie Mystal, “There’s Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops,” Nation, May 27, 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/white-america-cops/; Jon Schuppe, “Police across U.S. respond to Derek Chauvin trial: ‘Our American way of policing is on trial,’” NBC News, April 15, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-across-u-s-respond-derek-chauvin-trial-our-american-n1264224; Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “How Do We Change America?” New Yorker, June 8, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-do-we-change-america
  19. [19]Herbert J. Gans, The War Against the Poor (New York: Basic, 1995).
  20. [20]Steven E. Barkan, Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006); Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, 7th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004); Dan Simon, In Doubt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2012).
  21. [21]Ernest Drucker, A Plague of Prisons (New York: New Press, 2011).
  22. [22]Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” Atlantic, June 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
  23. [23]Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, eds., Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008); C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University, 1956, repr. 2000).
  24. [24]David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002); Martha C. Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2011).
  25. [25]Kurtis Lee, “Derek Chauvin is guilty of murdering George Floyd,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-04-20/jury-verdict-derek-chauvin-george-floyd-death
  26. [26]Alanna Durkin Richer and Lindsay Whitehurst, “1 verdict, then 6 police killings across America in 24 hours,” Associated Press, April 24, 2021, copy in possession of author
  27. [27]Jeet Heer, “How Not to Mourn George Floyd,” The Time of Monsters, April 21, 2021, https://jeetheer.substack.com/p/how-not-to-mourn-george-floyd; Arelis R. Hernández and Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., “Black Americans are buoyed by Chauvin conviction, but they worry it will blunt pace of reform,” Washington Post, April 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/20/chauvin-verdict-black-americans/; Jason Johnson, “I'm not happy. I'm not relieved. The verdict is a cultural make-up call. This ruling means it takes a Black man being murdered on TV in front of millions, a years worth of protest and a phalanx of white cops saying "this is wrong" for a black person to get a scintilla of justice,” Twitter, April 20, 2021, >https://twitter.com/DrJasonJohnson/status/1384637989444325378; Raphael Warnock, “Today’s verdict affirming Derek Chauvin’s responsibility for killing George Floyd is the right outcome in this trial, but it is not justice. . . .” Twitter, April 20, 2021, https://twitter.com/SenatorWarnock/status/1384651251061858323

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