April 19, 2024
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Foster renews call for police reform after police shooting of Daunte Wright

Congressman argues shooting shows how systemic racism and oppression continue to ‘terrorize’ Black Americans

By Alex Ortiz
bill foster, congress

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, speaks at a press conference at the VNA Health Care center in Romeoville on April 5, 2021. (Alex Ortiz)

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster renewed calls for passage of police reform legislation following another high-profile shooting death of a Black American at the hands of a police officer.

Foster, D-Naperville, made the plea in a tweet Wednesday following the shooting death of Daunte Wright, 20, by a police officer in a Minneapolis suburb last Sunday.

“Daunte Write should be with us today,” Foster said in the tweet. “This appears to be yet another example of why we need transformational change to policing in our country and how systemic racism & oppression continue to terrorize Black Americans.”

In the days since Wright’s death, Brooklyn Center police said the officer who shot him intended to fire a Taser and not her handgun. On Tuesday, both the officer who fatally shot Wright and the Brooklyn Center Police chief resigned.

Foster also called for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill introduced last year. The bill includes measures to set a national standard for policing, mandate data collection on police encounters, and would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants.