The family of Daunte Wright, a young man slain by police during a traffic stop last year, will receive a $3.25 million settlement from the city of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
“This settlement will not be finalized until agreement is also reached on substantial and meaningful non-monetary relief,” the family’s attorneys wrote in the news release.
On April 11, 2021, officers pulled Wright over, claiming that his tags had expired but discovered a warrant was out for his arrest for having a firearm without a permit. Wright was not armed but tried to drive away from the police in his car. Former Minneapolis police officer fatally shot him, claiming that she thought she had reached for her taser, and not her firearm.
In December, Potter was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, meaning she improperly used “such force and violence that death of or great bodily harm to any person was reasonably foreseeable.”
Potter was also found guilty of second-degree manslaughter because the jury found that she took “unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another.”
The settlement calls for training related to traffic stops for equipment violations that do not impede the safety of the driver, passenger or community members.
“There is no true justice for the Wrights because Daunte is never coming home,” co-counsel Jeff Storms said in the statement. “A guiding principle of our efforts was to strike a balance between holding Brooklyn Center accountable, while not undermining the financial stability of the city or limiting the services it provides.”
Potter must serve two-thirds of her two-year sentence in prison, or 16 months, according to state law.
