Former police officer Kim Potter broke down in court Friday as she recounted when she shot and killed Daunte Wright, a black teen, during a traffic stop in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Potter was mentoring a probationary officer on April 11 when they stopped Wright in Brooklyn Center over expired tags on the vehicle he was driving. The officers discovered that Wright had a warrant out for his arrest on a gun charge after running his information through law enforcement databases.
Acting on the warrant, Potter and the police trainee, Officer Anthony Luckey, moved to detain Wright with assistance from police Sgt. Mychal Johnson. Wright resisted officers, got back in the vehicle, and fought with Johnson over the gear shift, according to Potter’s testimony. She then said she mistakenly shot Wright with her firearm while thinking she held her taser. Potter testified:
I remember a struggle with officer Luckey and the driver at the door. The driver was trying to get back into the car. … I went around officer Luckey as they were trying to get back in the door, in between the door and officer Luckey and the driver, and the driver is getting into the car. … They’re still struggling and I can see Sergeant Johnson and the driver struggling over the gear shift because I can see Johnson’s hand, and then I can see his face. … He had a look of fear on his face. It’s nothing I’d seen before. … We were struggling. We were trying to keep him from driving away. It just went chaotic. And then I remember yelling ‘Taser! Taser! Taser!’ and nothing happened and then he told me I shot him.
#KimPotterTrial – Potter starts to cry about Johnson, "He had a look of fear on his face…" "It just went chaotic…and then I remember yelling Taser! Taser! Taser!.." Potter starts to cry and says, "..and then he told me I shot him!" #DaunteWright @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/QEfvgkoxFS
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) December 17, 2021
Her voice began to break as she recounted the incident. When she finished, her head dropped into her hands before she reached for tissues to dab her eyes.
Potter is facing charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter over Wright’s death. Joe Tamburino, a criminal defense attorney not affiliated with Potter’s case, explained the charges last month.
“In both cases, we’re dealing with recklessness or negligence. And for the first-degree manslaughter, that means that there’s an underlying offense. In this case, they’re alleging misdemeanor mishandling of a firearm,” he said. “For the second-degree, they’re just stating that it is reckless or extreme negligence. So for the second one, they would have to show that Ms. Potter was extremely negligent when she did the act. For the first-degree, they would have to show not only was she negligent, but also, she did an underlying crime, meaning the misdemeanor mishandling of a weapon.”
Potter resigned her post with the Brooklyn Center Police Department, a job she held for 26 years, shortly after the incident with Wright and moved out of state over concerns for her and the police department’s safety, she testified. “I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,” she wrote in a resignation letter.