Traffic Enforcement Written Assignment

A Synopsis of the Incident

This paper discusses the actions of law enforcement officers in a traffic stop-related
incident. A routine traffic stop turned fatal on a Sunday afternoon in April 2021 when a white
Minnesota police officer accidentally shot Daunte Wright, a twenty-year-old black man
(Good Morning America, 2021). Here is a short synopsis of the incident. Wright is driving
his white Buick in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, in the company of a female
passenger. Police officers on patrol pulled him over for an expired registration tag. One of the
officers runs a record check and finds that Wright has an outstanding warrant for arrest over a
gross misdemeanor weapons charge. The officers ask Wright to exit his car and place his
hands behind his back. At first, Wright complies with the commands, but when he struggles
to re-enter his car as an officer is attempting to handcuff him, another officer pulls out her
handgun, mistaking it for a Taser. She pulls the trigger on her gun and fires one bullet into
Wright’s left side. Wright speeds away but soon succumbs to the gunshot wound.
How the Incident Might Have Been Handled Better

In this incident, there were several things that the officers did correctly. First, the
officers were right in pulling over Wright’s car because they believed an offense had
occurred: that of driving around with an expired license plate. Second, the officers were right
in ordering Wright to step out of his car and put his hands behind his back. This is a standard
procedure aimed at ensuring the safety of police officers’ lest an offender is armed (KARE
11, 2021). Third, the officers were right in pointing out to Wright that it was an offense to
have air fresheners hanging in the rearview mirror because the air fresheners interfered with
Wright’s views of what was behind him. Fourth, the officers were right in demanding to
know the insurance details of the car. Finally, the sense of remorse and distress the officers

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express in the video shortly after realizing that they have shot Wright accidentally goes a long
way to convince many that the shooting was accidental.
However, the officers also got many things wrong, and they could have handled the
situation better. First, the officers failed to follow the right procedure for bringing the suspect
into custody. The right procedure would have been to bring the suspect either into the police
car or in the trunk of his car. Instead, the officers attempted to handcuff the suspect right next
to the driver’s door, in the full view of his female companion, who was possibly his girlfriend
(Deliso, 2021). The embarrassment of being manhandled in the full sight of his girlfriend
might have motivated the suspect to resist the arrest and insist on getting back into his car.
All that would have been avoided had the officers directed the suspect away from his car into
the officer’s car or at least in the trunk of his car. The other procedural glitch was officer Kim
Potter’s reaching the interior of the suspect’s car. Potter was the female officer who would,
moments later, shoot Wright (Deliso, 2021). Another mistake on the part of the officers was
that, on discovering that Wright had an outstanding warrant for arrest, they acted on impulse
and insisted on acting on the matter right there and then, in the heat of the moment. That, in
my view, was an instance of poor judgment, especially when one considers that most traffic
stops end in confrontation (KARE 11, 2021). The more prudent thing to do would have been
to let the driver go and follow up on the matter later when the situation is calmer.

Conclusion

In this incident, the suspect would have been charged with a number of traffic
offenses under various Minnesota State Statutes (FindLaw, n.d.). First, under Section 168.09
of Chapter 168 of Minnesota Statutes, he would have been charged with driving with expired
registration. This was the first and obvious offense that led the officers to pull over Wright’s
car. Under this Statute, no vehicle may be used or operated upon the state’s public streets and

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highways without a valid and current registration conspicuously displayed on it. Also, given
that the officers had demanded to know the insurance details of Wright’s car, there is a
possibility that he might have been found with the offense of either driving without insurance
or driving with insufficient insurance. Either is a criminal offense under Section 169.791 of
Chapter 169 of Minnesota Statutes. As a penalty for the offense, the court may impose a fine
of at least $200 in addition to any sentence of imprisonment it may impose. It is also possible
that Wright might have been charged under the state’s Failure to Appear Laws because he
had an outstanding warrant of arrest.

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References

Deliso, M. (2021, April 16). What we know about the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright.
Retrieved from ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/US/fatal-police-shooting-daunte-
wright/story?id=77092274
FindLaw. (n.d.). Minnesota Traffic Laws. Retrieved from FindLaw:
https://www.findlaw.com/traffic/traffic-tickets/minnesota-traffic-laws.html
Good Morning America. (2021, December 9). New video of ex-cop fatally shooting Daunte
Wright shown in court l GMA. Retrieved from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-nTPADiaBs
KARE 11. (2021, April 14). Law enforcement training experts weigh in on Daunte Wright
traffic stop. Retrieved from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc4mlHHrrQ0