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By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, associate publisher
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minnesota- A Minnesota judge on Friday handed convicted former police officer Kim Potter a lenient sentence of two years in prison for a jury conviction last year on both first and second degree manslaughter charges in the tragic shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota during a traffic stop arrest last spring, Potter, who is White, having faced up to 15 years behind bars.
The maximum sentence for first degree manslaughter is 15 years, and a $30,000 fine, and for second degree manslaughter, 10 years, and a $20,000 fine. Prosecutors had asked the judge, who literally cried and spoke out on behalf of Potter before issuing what Black leaders and the Wright family and its lawyer call racist and unfair, for a sentence beyond the sentencing guidelines of 6 to 8.5 years. Potter, 49, will be out of jail and in home confinement in less than 16 months, the judge said, and with credit for time served since her conviction on Dec 21, 2021.
The controversial Asian judge in the case, Regina Chu, said Potter deserved less time than the 86 months prosecutors wanted because she did not intend to kill Wright when she pulled her gun rather than her taser, an assertion Black legal experts say is absurd, and not really relevant to sentencing guidelines since the charge itself, manslaughter, takes such into account. Critics who expected a greater sentence for a life that was taken recklessly and negligently say also that there was no need to even put a taser on the Black man.
Speaking outside of the Hennepin County County Courthouse on Friday, Wrights mother, Katie Wright, expressed outrage and said that "today the justice system murdered my son all over again.”
She called Potter's apology and tears at sentencing bogus, and added that "a White lady's tears [Potter's] trumped justice."
The largely White jury that convicted Potter was comprised of six men and six women, two of them Black, two Asian American, and the other nine jurors White.
Wright's mother said after the trial last year 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.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the case on behalf of the state and said after last year'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.
But Ellison said after Fridays sentencing that while he disagrees with it, he accepts Judge Chu's two-year sentence for Potter.
A biracial Black man, Wright was fatally shot by Potter 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 Minnesota courtroom, 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 on trial now on federal civil rights charges for failing to intervene in Floyd's murder. Chauvin pleaded guilty last December to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights by using unreasonable force and ignoring Floyd's cries for help with prosecutors are seeking 25 years in that case when he is sentenced later this year.
The city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Floyd's family.
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