TIM Gannon was the police chief of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Minnesota. Gannon and Officer Kim Potter – who fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright – both resigned on April 13. Who is former police chief Tim Gannon? Gannon had served as police chief since 2015. “I’m very excited about the move,” he said […]
TIM Gannon was the police chief of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Minnesota.
Gannon and Officer Kim Potter – who fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright – both resigned on April 13.
Gannon had served as police chief since 2015.
“I’m very excited about the move,” he said at the time, according to one news outlet.
“I’ve been with the department since 1994, and I’ve had good experience in all the different areas and divisions that I’ve worked at.
“So I really feel well-prepared for this position, and we’re really going to hit the ground running.
“Having been involved in the department as long as I have, I know the inner workings of it, and I do want to put my own handprint on the agency moving forward.”
Wright was killed on April 11, 2021, as cops tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant.
“I’ll Tase you! I’ll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!” Potter is heard shouting on her body cam footage. She draws her weapon after the man breaks free from police outside his car and gets back behind the wheel.
After firing a single shot from her handgun, the car speeds away, and the officer is heard saying, “Holy (expletive)! I shot him.”
Gannon has said he believed Potter mistakenly grabbed her gun when she was going for her Taser when Wright was killed.
“Whenever, through the line of duty, someone kills another human being, there must be accountability,” Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott told the Today show.
Potter, on the force for 26 years, sent a one-paragraph letter of resignation.
“I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,” Potter wrote.
Protests erupted for a second night following the Wright shooting, heightening anxiety in an area already on edge as the Derek Chauvin trial progresses.
George Floyd died May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck.
Brooklyn Center is a suburb just north of Minneapolis that has seen its demographics shift dramatically in recent years.
In 2000, more than 70 percent of the city was white. Today, a majority of residents are Black, Asian or Latino.
