Death of a Motorist

"This was no oopsie, this not putting the wrong date on a check, this was not entering the wrong password, this was a colossal screw-up, a blunder of epic proportions, it was precisely the thing she was warned about for years, it was irreversible and it was fatal."

Prosecutor Erin Eldridge

 

"I could stop right here. Because if you presume, which you have to do, if you presume that she did not cause the death, which you have to have the presumption of innocence, did they prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she caused this death? No."

"Daunte Wright caused his own death, unfortunately. Those are the cold hard facts of the evidence." 

Potter’s attorney Earl Gray

 

"[The verdict] provided some measure of accountability for the senseless death of their son, brother, father and friend."

"From the unnecessary and overreaching tragic traffic stop to the shooting that took his life, that day will remain a traumatic one for this family and yet another example for America of why we desperately need change in policing, training and protocols."

Statement: Attorneys Benjamin Crump, Antonio Romanucci and Jeff Storms

A jury has found former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter guilty on two manslaughter charges in the death of Daunte Wright. Potter shot and killed the 20-year-old Wright during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis earlier this year.  Pool via Reuters

A 26-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force now faces the potential of 15 years in prison for the shooting death of yet another black man. The criminal and unintentional death of George Floyd in 2020 is still reverberating if not around the world, then in Minnesota. And it was no doubt the proximity in time and place with that outrage still seething in the trial of Derek Chauvin the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death that led to the guilty verdict in the trial of 49-year-old Kim Potter.

 

Young Black men earned a broad national reputation as a criminal underclass in the United States. Their presence in prisons over-representing their numbers in society as a reflection of their gang memberships propensity to crime and violence. A long history of racial discrimination may play a part in this penchant for black youth to lend themselves to petty crime, to violence and to a loathing for law enforcement whether or not American Blacks have proven themselves more than capable of matching their white peers in any profession.

The presence of black mayors and chiefs of police appears to have made little impression on the trajectory black youth so often take for their future in crime and nor did the event of a black president of their country, black magistrates, academics, journalists, health professionals all distinguishing themselves in pride of careers. Police still face an overwhelming black presence in crime and law enforcement. Even so, statistics appear to bear out that white criminals come to grief just as often as do blacks.

The temper of the times, with Black Lives Matter turning the tables on white 'supremacy' and the sordid history of racial discrimination, slavery and violence against blacks in America set the stage for this police officer's harsh jury judgement of guilt in the death of black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop gone dreadfully wrong when it was discovered that the man stopped for a minor traffic infraction had failed to appear in court on a criminal charge.

Then-senior-officer Potter's body camera took footage of the encounter when she and two other officers pulled over the 20-year-old motorist at the traffic stop. When Daunte Wright resisted being handcuffed, a scuffle broke out and a melee ensued, with then-Officer Potter warning him repeatedly he would be tasered if he continued to resist arrest. In the heat of the scuffle she withdrew what was meant to be her stun gun, but which was her service revolver.

Calling, 'taser, taser, taser', she shot the resisting young man in the chest, killing him. She realized instantly what had occurred, and blurted out her belief that she would be held responsible for Daunte Wright's death, even while she declared it had been an accident. In the confusion of the struggle between the resisting man and the three police officers, an automatic action thought to be warranted under the tense situation went badly wrong.

Nothing could restore a man's life. And justice is not always the poultice to cover a sore. Extenuating circumstances often influence a judgement between deliberate action and involuntary error. Both prosecutors and defence attorneys were in agreement that Officer Potter had drawn the wrong weapon in error, with no intention whatever of doing harm to Daunte Wright, much less ending up being the instrument of his death.

Prosecutors insisted that the officer's prior 26 years of experience in law enforcement made it inexcusable that an error of this magnitude could occur. Charging her with deliberately taking a conscious, unreasonable risk using any weapon under the circumstances. These are predictable courtroom claims, easily made by those whose professions will never bring them to a violent, potentially dangerous encounter with a felon.

The officer's attorneys, for their part, placed the responsibility for the young man's death squarely on his own behaviour, resisting arrest and in so doing creating a fraught situation, justifying the use of force. Her decision to use a taser on an unruly man resisting arrest was not out of line in her professional conduct. A psychologist, Dr.Laurence Miller, testified about "action error" occurring when someone takes an unintended action, intending to act otherwise.

In their collective wisdom -- or in a reflection of the temper of the times in an overheated reaction to historical wrongs of black victimization -- the jury chose to make an example of a police officer whose judgement was called into question on the basis of a bad situation turning into an untenable, and truly unjustifiable loss of human life. Leaving Kimberley Potter guilty of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, April 11.