Daunte Wright, at left, and former police officer Kim Potter.Photo: Bruce Bisping/Star Tribune via Getty Images
Kim Potter, the Minnesota police officer who fatally shotDaunte Wrightduring a traffic stop last year, will spend 16 months in prison and an additional eight months on supervised release.
Potter was sentenced in a Hennepin County courtroom Friday morning, nearly two months after a juryconvicted herof first- and second-degree manslaughter following three days of deliberations.
During the hearing, Judge Regina Chu said that Potter would only be sentenced for the charge of first-degree manslaughter, since second-degree manslaughter is a lesser charge of the same nature. According to the judge, Minnesota’s guidelines recommend a sentence of 74 to 103 months for first-degree manslaughter.
The defense had requested that the judge grant Potter a dispositional departure — allowing her to serve her time on probation rather than in prison — arguing that she will never work as a police officer or own a gun again thus eliminating her risk to the community.
Chuspoke for several minutesahead of handing down Potter’s sentence, tearing up at times over the difficulty of the case. She ultimately determined that Potter’s conduct warranted prison time to “pay for the harm she inflicted” on Wright’s family, but that the nature of the shooting did not justify putting her behind bars for seven years, as many expected.
“That I granted a significant downward departure does not in anyway diminish Daunte Wright’s life,” Chu said. “His life mattered.”
Immediately after the hearing, prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump held a press conference expressing disappointment, noting that “there are Black people in prison serving greater time for selling marijuana, which is legal in most states, than this police officer got for killing this young Black man.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison requested that everyone accept Chu’s decision, whether they agree or not.
“Accountability is the first step on the road to justice,” Ellison said in a statement. “But justice is more than accountability. It is also compassion, mercy, and healing, both individual and generational. Healing allows us to see the humanity in each one of us — everyone included, no exceptions.”
Before Chu determined Potter’s sentence, she allowed Daunte’s loved ones to read statements about the gravity of their loss.
“Police are supposed to protect and serve the community,” said Chyna Whitaker, the mother of Wright’s young son. “How will my son learn to trust the police after what happened to his dad?”
Potter shot Wright, a 20-year-old father, in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center when he allegedly resisted arrest after being pulled over on April 11, 2021. Potter’s former police chief said that the officerbelieved she was shooting her Taser, not her service weapon, when she fired a single shot that killed Wright.
Potter entered a plea of not guilty to both charges of manslaughter. Her trial began in late November.
As the unarmed Wright did so, “the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” Gannon said at anews conferenceafter the shooting.
Wright was struck in the chest. His vehicle then traveled several blocks before crashing into another car, and he died at the scene.
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Potter, a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center police force,resigned in the wake of Wright’s shooting. Police Chief Gannon resigned as well.
In filing theoriginal criminal charge of second-degree manslaughter, Imran Ali, assistant criminal division chief in the Washington County Attorney’s Office, said that Potter “abrogated her responsibility to protect the public when she used her firearm rather than her Taser.”
He added: “Her action caused the unlawful killing of Mr. Wright and she must be held accountable.”
Kim Potter, in her mugshot.Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock
During the trial, Potter’s defense called the shooting a “horrific mistake,” but also asserted that Potter would have been within her rights to use deadly force on Wright because he could have dragged another officer with his car.
source: people.com
