The connections between the deaths of George Floyd and Daunte Wright are even closer than previously known.
Besides being Black men who both died in encounters with Minnesota police officers, there was a more personal connection between the two, according to Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross.
Wright was a student at Edison High School in Minneapolis when Ross was employed as a dean there, The Washington Post reported.
Ross told the paper she knew Wright and described him as “a silly boy, as goofy as can be,” saying he required extra attention because he “needed a lot of love.”
Ross said she heard about the shooting from a local crime app but it wasn’t until later when her sister mentioned Wright’s name that Ross made the connection.
“No,” Ross said. “Is he light-skinned? Really skinny? I said, no, no, I couldn’t believe it.”
Although Ross wasn’t a close family friend of Wright’s, she said he was well-known in their community as a “gregarious” young man.
Sadly, the last time she saw Wright was when she was walking with Floyd and saw the teen being confronted by Brooklyn Center police on a street corner.
“I’m full of sorrow,” Ross said. “We are constantly doing our disservice to our children. It’s so unfair.”
The Wright family connected with Floyd’s family on Tuesday and CNN’s Sara Sidner tweeted about the encounter.
Police in Brooklyn Center shot and killed Wright on Sunday afternoon after pulling him over for a traffic violation, a few weeks after the murder trial began for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in Floyd’s death.
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