Human Rights Program statement on the police killing of Daunte Wright
The Human Rights Program shares in our community’s grief and outrage at the killing of Daunte Wright.
Last June, we released a statement signed by more than 4,000 University faculty, staff and graduate students, condemning the killing of George Floyd. We made our demands then for “justice, accountability, acknowledgement, and restitution, including reforms to prevent this from happening again.”
Outrageously, it has happened again. Indeed, the killing of Daunte Wright, along with that of Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, and George Floyd, have made Minnesota the terrible focus of the world’s attention for our failure to protect the lives and wellbeing of African Americans.
International law has a great deal to teach us
about policing that respects human rights,
as well as about eliminating racism.
The United States Government is bound by
treaties that define what steps it must take
to protect the right to life of African Americans and to
eliminate discrimination.
The Human Rights Program has explained how
the murder of George Floyd has been
shaping international discourse on race and policing.
In addition, international standards on the police’s
use of firearms, make clear: “intentional lethal
use of firearms may only be made when strictly
unavoidable in order to protect life.”
(Basic Principles on Use of Force and Firearms, art. 9)
Even when using less-lethal weapons, like
TASERS, international law provides:
“less-lethal weapons must be employed
only subject to strict requirements of necessity
and proportionality, in situations in which other
less harmful measures have proven to be or
clearly are ineffective to address the threat.”
(HRC, General Comment 36, para. 14.)
And so, we will continue to make these demands – for justice, accountability, and social and institutional transformation – until we see affirmative, proactive and transformational change that leads to respect for all Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latinx and other People of Color in our communities. We must end racial profiling, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of African Americans. We must address the economic and social disparities that limit opportunities for Black Minnesotans to take control of their destinies.
In the ten months since we issued that statement the University of Minnesota human rights community has engaged in critical conversations about our broken system of policing, we have raised up the voices of BIPOC experts and activists and we have supported research projects to illuminate promising pathways to change. Our students have been leading voices for change, and have taken on research on police practices against protestors. But it is not enough.
So, again, we call for and commit ourselves to actions that will bring:
- An end to violations against all Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latinx and other People of Color;
- An end to this terrible legacy of systemic racial discrimination that sickens us and prevents us from creating peaceful and sustainable communities;
- Justice for BIPOC victims of violence and discrimination;
- Support for BIPOC leaders to rebuild our community into one that values human dignity, equality, sustains and develops all children and all families, and puts the health and livelihoods of all people at the center of our policy decisions.
