Four years after Daunte Wright‘s death, Brooklyn Center scales back police reform

NINA MOINI: Tomorrow will be four years since a Brooklyn Center police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright, a young Black man. Shortly after his death, the city passed a resolution outlining public safety reforms. It was named after Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler, a young man with autism who was killed by police in 2019.

Activists say the city council is now backing away from the promises that were made four years ago. I talked with Katie Wright, the mother of Daunte Wright, and Amity Dimock, the mother of Kobe Dimock-Heisler. They've become close as they've pushed for changes to policing in the city. Katie Wright started the conversation by telling me about the moment these two mothers met.

KATIE WRIGHT: It was actually on the day of my son's murder. I was at the scene, waiting for police to tell me what was going on, and I noticed just a crowd of people just starting to show up about a block from where I was sitting. So I decided to walk down there to see if any of our family was there yet.

And Amity and her husband at the time-- they kept trying to just come up to me and talk to me. And everything was such a blur for me. I didn't really want to speak to anybody, I was confused. I was in a twilight zone.

But all I remember is Amity walking up to me-- I'm going to cry. And I just remember this big medallion on her chest that said, Kobe. And I was like, what is that? And they just kept trying to talk to me and telling me, oh, my gosh, our son was killed by the same police department. You really need to take our number.

And it was her husband more than her coming up to me because she was like-- from what I know now, she was like, leave that lady alone. She's not thinking about anything right now. But her husband's like, no, we need to talk to her. And I just-- that's what I remember of that day, is just that Kobe medallion that Amity was wearing.

NINA MOINI: Amity, what was your perspective, I wonder, that day?

AMITY DIMOCK: Well, pretty much what she said. And my guy, John-- rest in peace. He died of cancer last year. I was like, can you imagine? We don't know these people, and they just have gone through the most tragic thing imaginable. And it's all out in public, because I was at home by myself up in Northern Minnesota when I found out about my son.

So I just, equally, couldn't imagine, and still don't know how Katie and her family experienced what they experienced, to where the whole public could see it. Finding out about it, having your reaction and everything for the world to see just blew my mind. But yeah, I was very uncomfortable walking up to a stranger because I could only imagine a stranger coming up to me in that situation and thinking that they were the one that I wanted to talk to.

But because it had been about a year and John was smart, he knew that-- I mean, one of the things you find out when you end up in this situation is time is of the essence. So you instantly, unfortunately, that day, have to start getting connected with the people you need to get connected with.

And that was John's urgency, was this is such a severe emergency that it doesn't matter how they feel. We need to talk to them. They need to have this stuff right now. And so that's how-- that was our first meeting.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And to your point, Amity-- I mean, Katie, this has been so public from the very beginning. But also, you have been in this space of prevention and police reform for several years now, along with Amity and others, having to do with Brooklyn Center. Can you tell me a little bit about how it all started, with wanting to make those police reforms, at least the city level?

KATIE WRIGHT: Well, it started probably about a week after Daunte was killed. I just felt so lost. And I started to get introduced to other mothers that went through the same tragedy as Amity and I did. And I'm just like, what can we do differently? What can we do that's actually going to make changes? There has to be something, because I can't just sit in bed-- even though I wanted to. I just wanted to crawl in bed and just cry and never come out again, kind of just fall into a hole.

And Mike, Mayor Mike, at the time, that was the mayor of Brooklyn Center-- we had a candlelight vigil for Daunte. And he walked up to me. And it was just-- I just remember-- and again, it's still twilight zone for me. I just remember this little man, because he was just so much smaller than me, just walk up, and he just had tears in his eyes. He just looked very hurt, almost as if he knew Daunte.

And I was like, hello? And he was like, hi, I'm the mayor of Brooklyn Center. And I was like, oh. And at first, I wanted to be so angry at him because he was Brooklyn Center, and I was just so mad at Brooklyn Center. It didn't matter what part of the city staff you had to deal with. I just didn't want any parts of Brooklyn Center.

But the pain in his eyes let me know that I could trust him. And he just said, we're going to make a change. And I said, OK, I want to be a part of that. And he said, well, whenever you're ready. And then we met again when they introduced the resolution of the Daunte and Kobe Safety and Community Violence Prevention Act. I sat in that space with Amity, and that's when I seen Amity and John again and a bunch of community members.

And I just looked around, and I'm like oh my gosh, this is really happening. They're trying to right their wrong and make sure that no other mother has to go through the pain that Amity and I have, and so many more mothers in Minnesota. I mean, Daunte and Kobe aren't the first, and I really hope they're the last, but they haven't been either.

And that moment, I was just like, yes, this is what I need to do because I have to turn my pain into power and make sure that no other mothers have to do it again because it takes a lot to be able to sit into a space with people who harmed us to be able to make changes.

NINA MOINI: Over the years-- so this is back in, like, 2021. Over the years, the both of you have worked for reforms in areas like response to mental health crises, different types of police stops that police should or should not make for minor traffic violations. And those have been ongoing efforts for years now.

But in that time, as you both know, the makeup of the city council has changed. Different things, different people and stakeholders have come to the table. Where are things at now, Amity, and how are you both feeling about all these reform efforts in the last four years of work that you and others have put in?

AMITY DIMOCK: Well, I would say, specifically speaking on the work in Brooklyn Center, the Daunte and Kobe Implementation Act, that was supposed to be their good-faith effort to show that they wanted to make true and lasting and meaningful changes-- pretty much, it seems like through the duration of trying to get it passed, and then once it got passed and then starting to try to do the work, there was what I call strategic incapacitation for multiple areas in the city, clearly, by people who didn't actually want this to pass and go forward. So we dealt with that over the years.

There was a whole period in time where we were working with Law Enforcement Action Partnership, also, that the city had paid to help us do the work. And there was even a few-months period of time where there was no work done because that's how contentious and-- won't get into all the issues that happened.

Fast forward to the end. They had created an implementation committee to give recommendations to the city council. And ultimately, we gave them low-level traffic stop policy reform. And even going through with all the stakeholders at the table, which watered that version down to in half of what we had, the city council still did not pass that, even though the week prior to when the vote was supposed to have, we had everybody in the room. The commanders, the city manager, the council, the mayor, everybody seemed to be on board.

And last minute, when the chief of police, Chief McDaniel at the time, was supposed to give a presentation in support, he actually withdrew his support instead, which totally surprised us. And that caused the council members, who we had finally gotten on board, to now be off board again.

So the traffic stop policy reform got voted down, and they have done nothing on that and don't plan to. And then for the mental health response, once again, once we did the research, we found out that, actually, you want a whole appropriate response initiative, which has mental health response, public health response, and community response.

Ultimately, that is what we recommended to them. And once again, they went the watered down version route of it. They do have two mental health pilot programs, which is a little bizarre to me. And they're not both going at the same time. One's doing it at this time. Then-- so it's a little weird, and from what I've heard, there's been a little bit of pushback. But from what I can tell from the, now, current chief, he does seem to be in support of mental health response.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, so the perspective from the both of you, as mothers, is that the city has really watered down a lot of the proposed reforms from early on. So fast forward to now, there's this proposed Community Violence Prevention and Public Safety Commission that the council actually passed in December, which would allow people to give feedback or their perspectives to lawmakers.

What do you want or foresee this commission to be, Katie? And are you hopeful that it's going to actually come together?

KATIE WRIGHT: When we envisioned the committee and how we were hoping that it would be formed and come together would be community-led because that's what community asked for. We have done so many town halls and public outreach and engagement with Brooklyn Center community and residents. And that's what they asked for.

So I was hopeful that that was going to happen, because it was passed. Everybody was on board. And now, unfortunately, I am not seeing that that's going to happen. On the 14th is when they're going to vote on it, and they definitely want to repeal that piece of the resolution.

I feel like Brooklyn Center has pushed forward the changes when the spotlight was on them, and they did it for show. And now that they see that, OK, the fire has cleared; we can go back to business as usual, because there's a few council members that sit on the seat now that don't want that change.

I feel at this moment, the only one or two people that are wanting to really see meaningful change in Brooklyn Center for community is the mayor and [INAUDIBLE], the other three are just absolutely not for anything. They don't even want to hear or participate in any conversation.

I have reached out to them numerous of times to ask them why they're against it so much, and I get no response. So at this time, I feel like Amity and I, again, have sat into spaces only to be bamboozled or to just appease us in the moment. And now they're just going to go back to business as usual, unfortunately.

And it's really heartbreaking for me and Amity because we know this pain. And we know that if changes don't happen, there's going to be another mother added to our list.

We both agree, yes, we need police officers. We do. We have never once said that we don't. We need them to do what police work is. And that's being detectives and investigating crimes. They don't prevent crime.

And especially during a traffic stop, we know for police and for community and the person that's getting pulled over, it's very dangerous. So the best way to prevent that is to put some safety measures in place to protect everyone. And they feel as if that is not what Brooklyn Center needs anymore because there's not another Daunte Wright or Kobe Heisler right now.

But unfortunately, the way statistics-- the way history has shown, there will be. And we're going to continue to speak up and speak out because this is what they promised. They promised it in our settlement agreement. They promised it to the community. They promised it to their constituents. They promised it to families, to leaders.

They promised it nationally, on national news, that they were going to be this big, bright light of hope for police reform, and Brooklyn. Center was going to start that. And unfortunately, they haven't started anything, except for very minimal washed down versions of what they feel will appease community and family.

NINA MOINI: Well, we're going to be keeping an eye on what happens at council Monday. And we thank you both, Katie and Amity, for coming by and sharing your perspective with us. We really appreciate it.

KATIE WRIGHT: Yeah, of course. Thank you.

AMITY DIMOCK: We appreciate you having us.

NINA MOINI: That was Katie Wright, the mother of Daunte Wright, and Amity Dimock, the mother of Kobe Dimock-Heisler. The Brooklyn Center city council again is expected to vote Monday on whether to repeal the community violence prevention and public Safety Commission. We did reach out to the mayor for comment, as well as the three city council members who have opposed this commission. Two council members replied but declined to give any comment.