A jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Kim Potter on all charges for the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright.
The mostly white jury deliberated for about four days. 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.”
She was also found guilty of second-degree manslaughter charge because the jury found that she took “unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another.”
On April 11, 2021, Wright was pulled over by officers who claimed his tags had expired but discovered there was a warrant out for his arrest for having a firearm without a permit. He was not armed at the time.
Potter can be heard yelling, “I’ll Tase you. Taser! Taser! Taser!” while holding a pistol in the police bodycam footage. Wright returns to his vehicle and attempts to drive away when the officer shoots him. He crashed into another vehicle after driving several blocks.
Potter, 49, testified during the trial that she was “sorry it happened” and claimed she did not recall the moments immediately following the shooting.
Wright’s family will never forget them.
“Officer [Anthony] Luckey started to say something about ‘don’t do that, don’t tense up, stop doing that,'” she recalled. “And then, it just went completely chaotic. I remember struggle with officer Luckey at the door. The driver was trying to get back into the car.”
Potter is scheduled to be sentenced at a hearing on Feb. 18. She faces a maximum of 15 years behind bars.
