BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota- A Minnesota jury on Thursday found former police officer Kim Potter guilty of both first and second degree manslaughter in the tragic shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota earlier this year during a traffic stop arrest, Potter, who is White, facing up to 15 years behind bars under state guidelines. Wright was a biracial Black man.
The maximum sentence for first degree manslaughter is 15 years, and a $30,000 fine fine, and for second degree manslaughter, 10 years, and a $20,000 fine. Prosecutors say they will ask the judge for a sentence beyond the sentencing guidelines.
The largely White jury with one alternate was comprised of six men and six women, two of them Black, two Asian American, and the other nine jurors White.
Supporters outside the courtroom were elated and chanted “guilty, guilty, guilty!”
The disgraced former cop who had been on the police force for 26 years was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody. She will be sentenced Feb 18 at 10 am before presiding judge Judge Regina Chu, who denied her attorney's request that she remain out of prison for the time being and revoked her $100,000 bond.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to deny bail pending appeal, saying that her family had already moved out of town.
Katie Bryant, Wright's mother, said after the trial that she felt "every single emotion that you could imagine" as the verdict was read. "I kind of let out a yelp, because it was built up in the anticipation of what was to come," she said.
Bryant said her family is grateful and that "the bigger issue is with policing."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the case on behalf of the state and said after Thursday's jury verdict that Potter had been held accountable for Wright's death.
"Accountability is not justice. Justice is restoration. Justice would be restoring Daunte to life and making the Wright family whole again," Ellison told reporters.
The jury deliberated for 27 hours over a period of four days before reaching its celebrated verdict relative to the two week closely watched trial.
Wright was fatally shot by Potter, 49, on April 11 during a traffic stop over expired license plates, a dangling air freshener, and an attempted arrest for an outstanding arrest warrant in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. After a brief struggle with officers, the young Black man, whom police claim resisted arrest, was shot at close range. He then drove off a short distance, but his vehicle collided with another and hit a concrete barrier. Officers pulled his body out of his car and administered CPR but were unsuccessful in their attempts to revive him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The following day, police said that Potter meant to use her Taser, but accidentally grabbed her gun instead, striking Wright with one shot to his chest. Two days later, Potter and then Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon, who had publicly called the shooting death an accident, resigned from their positions and Potter fled her home after her address was leaked on social media.
The shooting and claims by police and higher ups that it was an accident sparked heightened protests in Brooklyn Center and renewed ongoing demonstrations against police brutality in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, leading to citywide and regional curfews. Demonstrations also spread to cities across the United States.
A wrongful death lawsuit brought by Wright's family remains pending. Wright, whose father is Black and mother, White, left behind an infant daughter.
Wright's girlfriend, who was in the car with him when he was killed, was among those who testified at trial for the prosecution. She was visibly shaken if not hysterical at times as she recounted her version of the events that led to the deadly shooting of her boyfriend.
The defense argued at trial that Potter made a mistake and pulled her taser instead of her gun while prosecutors shot back, saying some mistakes have consequences and that Potter's so-called mistake was a crime of large magnitudes. At one point prosecutors suggested that Potter's alleged intention to use her taser was not even necessary as the defense claimed the former officer actually had a right to use deadly force, a contradiction brought forth even after Potter took the stand at trial and repeatedly cried and admitted her guilt and culpability.
Wright's shooting death, occurring simultaneously with the murder trial of George Floyd's killer a stone's throw away in a Minnesotacourtroom, has made Minneapolis and its metropolitan area, inclusive of the suburban city of Brooklyn Center, the epicenter of excessive force shooting deaths of unarmed Black men like Floyd and Wright.
Activists and Black leaders, including members of Congress, say it is a clear indictment relative to the nation's racist and inept legal system and its negative and oppressive impact on Black people, and their families
A veteran cop before he was fired after killing Floyd on May 25, 2020 following an arrest for alleged forgery over a counterfeit $20 bill, Derek Chauvin, 46 White, was convicted on On June 25, 2021 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter before a jury in the Minnesota Fourth Judicial District Court and sentenced to 221⁄2 years in prison. He is appealing his case.
Three other police officers at the scene who did nothing while Chauvin held his knee on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes until he killed him were also fired. Former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao are scheduled to be tried on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder All four officers faced federal civil rights charges In December 2021, Chauvin pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights by using unreasonable force and ignoring Floyd's
The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Floyd's family.
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