The mother of a teenager filed a lawsuit Friday seeking damages from the estate of Daunte Wright, claiming that before he was killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer on April 11, he shot her son in the head north Minneapolis gas station in 2019, leaving him permanently disabled.
Jennifer LeMay filed the lawsuit on behalf of her son Caleb JaChin Duane Livingston, 18, whom the lawsuit said is “alive but has no function.” The family no longer lives in Minnesota.
On May 14, 2019, the lawsuit claims Wright was the one who fired a gun at the Full Stop gas station at 1818 N. Lowry Av. Livingston, who was visiting from Illinois, had stopped to fill his tank. After a brief confrontation, he was shot.
The lawsuit said that at 9:19 p.m., Wright intentionally and negligently discharged a firearm at Livingston, striking him once in the head and causing “serious, disabling, and permanent injuries.”
No one has been charged in the shooting. LeMay’s lawyer Mike Padden claims in the lawsuit that there’s a “plethora” of evidence pointing to Wright as the person who shot Livingston.
Messages left for Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, and the family’s attorney, Jeff Storms, were not returned.
According to court records, the lawsuit was filed May 4, but LeMay requested that it be sealed because of “plans to enter into negotiations” with lawyers for Wright’s estate, along with the fact that the shooting remains under investigation. After LeMay withdrew her request, Judge Edward Wahl ordered the documents unsealed on May 21. Police spokesman John Elder said Friday that the case remains open.
A filing in the lawsuit claims that as young boys, Livingston and Wright were friends, but had a falling out. In early May 2019, Livingston beat up Wright in front of others. “It is believed that this was a significant factor/motive as to why Wright targeted and shot Livingston,” the document said.
Wright was a member of a gang called “Red Tape” and had a significant criminal history beginning at age 12, including a pending aggravated robbery charge at the time of his death, the lawsuit said. There are also images of Wright on social media pointing a Smith and Wesson 9mm, the lawsuit said.
“It seems clear that Wright was fully committed to a lifestyle of crime,” the lawsuit said.
Because of the shooting, Livingston suffered “grievous and permanent injuries to his body and nervous system, past and future loss of earnings and earning capacity, past and future medical expenses, past and future pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, humiliation, embarrassment, and severe emotional distress,” the lawsuit said.
LeMay, who lived in Chicago at the time, spoke to the Star Tribune in November 2019 about her son’s injury. To relieve pressure on his swollen brain, surgeons had to remove a large portion of his skull. After he was declared brain dead, he was taken off life support but he survived.
He spent 33 days in the ICU at North Memorial Medical Center where the bill totaled $545,776.69 and caused a fight with her insurance company over who would pay.
“I didn’t ask for my child to be shot,” LeMay said at the time. “So I have literally liquidated everything that I have stored away for savings.”
LeMay had her son transferred to a Chicago hospital and then to a transitional facility. His mom said she saw some signs of progress with her son opening his eyes, eating ice cream, responding to voices and sometimes giving a thumbs-up sign. Padden said Livingston’s diagnosis is unresponsive wakefulness syndrome.
The lawsuit said that because of Wright’s actions, Livingston cannot meet his basic living needs and his mother must handle all his personal affairs, the lawsuit said.
Wright’s conduct was “extreme and outrageous and utterly intolerable in any civilized society and was intentionally and recklessly directed toward” Livingston, the lawsuit said.
Wright, 20, was shot and killed by then-Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter, who reportedly believed she was firing at Wright with her Taser but shot him with her handgun. She has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.
Since his death, Wright’s parents have been working with civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, the same lawyer who won a $27 million settlement from the city of Minneapolis for the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin.
*story by The Star Tribune
