Ex-cop on deadly stop: ‘I’m sorry it happened’
MINNEAPOLIS — The suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright testified at her manslaughter trial Friday that she wouldn’t have pulled over his car if she hadn’t been training another officer and that she hadn’t planned to use deadly force that day.
Under questioning by a prosecutor, Kim Potter sobbed during her sometimes emotional testimony, saying at times, “I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” and later, “I’m sorry it happened.”
Potter was the final witness before the defense rested at the end of the second week of testimony. She said she shot Wright in a moment of chaos on April 11 after he tried to leave the scene as she and other officers were trying to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for a weapons violation.
Potter, 49, said she meant to use her Taser to subdue Wright when he pulled away from the officers and got back into his car, but shot him once with her handgun instead.
Potter said she yelled, “Taser!” repeatedly so the other officers, who were trying to get Wright out of his car, would disengage.
Potter testified under questioning by one of her lawyers that she had no training on “weapons confusion.” She also said she never used a Taser while on duty during her 26 years on the force, though she had pulled it out a few times, and that she never used her gun until the day she shot Wright.
Potter’s attorneys argued that she made a mistake but also would have been justified in using deadly force if she had meant to because another officer was at risk of being dragged by Wright’s car.
Prosecutors say Potter was an experienced officer who had extensive training in Taser use and the use of deadly force, and that her actions were unreasonable.
During cross-examination, prosecutor Erin Eldridge drove hard at Potter’s training, getting her to agree that her use-of-force training was a “key component” to being an officer. Potter testified that she was also trained on when to use force and how much to use, and that there was a policy that dictated what officers could or could not do.
Under questioning by her own attorney, Potter said she doesn’t remember everything that happened after the shooting, including what she said or being in an ambulance.
“So much of it is missing,” she said of her memory.
She said she has been in therapy since the shooting, and that she left Minnesota and is no longer a police officer.