George Floyd's Girlfriend Has Link to Daunte Wright

Daunte Wright was shot dead roughly 11 miles from where George Floyd was killed, per Newsweek. That's not the only connection the two men share. The Washington Post reports that a more personal link has emerged: It turns out Floyd's former girlfriend, Courteney Ross, was a dean at Edison High School when Wright was a student there. Wright's aunt, Naisha Wright, also shared the link at a Tuesday press conference, per CBS News. "The craziest thing is to find out today that my family has connections to this man, to this family." (Naisha Wright indicated Ross was Daunte's teacher, but that appears to be incorrect.) On Monday Ross said she didn't know Daunte well, but she described him as "a silly boy, as goofy as can be," who "needed a lot of love."

Odder still, her last recollection of seeing him was in the summer of 2019 "being confronted" by Brooklyn Center police, as the Post puts it, while she happened to be walking with Floyd. One tweeted reaction from education/policy organization the Conscious Kid, "Finding out that George Floyd’s girlfriend was Daunte Wright’s teacher reminds us that Fred Hampton’s mom babysat Emmett Till. It’s devastating to grasp the violence & collective trauma of systemic racism across families, communities & generations—& know how little has changed." Daunte's mother, Katie Wright, appeared at a Tuesday news conference outside a Minneapolis courthouse. Ross was there, and "wrapped her arms around Ms. Wright" then "left in tears," reports the New York Times. (More Daunte Wright stories.)