Riots in Minnesota: Police officer apparently drew her gun by mistake, instead of her Taser – VIDEO

A suburban Minneapolis police officer apparently drew her gun by mistake, instead of her Taser, when she shot a young Black man to death during a traffic stop, a police chief said on Monday, hours before a second night of unrest sparked by the killing.

Family members of the slain motorist, Daunte Wright, 20, rejected the notion that a mere accident was to blame for Sunday’s shooting in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, with Wright’s grieving brother denouncing the police as “trigger happy.”

The shooting roiled a region already on edge, as last year’s killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died with his neck pinned to a Minneapolis street under a white policeman’s knee, was being recounted in graphic detail in the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin, charged with his murder.

Wright was killed just 10 miles from where Floyd, 46, lost his life while under arrest for allegedly passing a bogus $20 bill, unleashing a months-long nationwide upheaval of protests against racial injustice in the U.S. law enforcement system.

Brooklyn Center’s police chief, Tim Gannon, said during a news briefing on Monday that Wright was pulled over for an expired vehicle registration and that the shooting was apparently unintentional, judging from his initial review of police video footage of the incident.

‘ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE’

“This appears to me, from what I viewed and the officers’ reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright,” said Gannon.

The Hennepin County medical examiner on Monday ruled the death a homicide, confirming in an autopsy that Wright was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest.

Sunday’s shooting immediately ignited a night of street skirmishes between police and protesters in Brooklyn Center, with local news media reporting looting and burglaries of about 20 businesses at a nearby shopping center.

Disturbances flared anew on Monday, as hundreds of protesters braving a steady downpour and defying a curfew ordered by Governor Tim Walz clashed with law enforcement as darkness fell outside police headquarters in Brooklyn Center.

A crowd surged against a fence erected to keep protesters at bay, some hurling bottles and other projectiles and lighting off fireworks as police responded by firing volleys of tear gas and what appeared to be non-lethal plastic rounds.

A nearby discount store was looted and vandalized, but most of the demonstrators drifted away by 10 p.m. local time. As calm was restored, police reported 40 arrests in Brooklyn Center for offenses ranging from curfew violations to rioting charges.