EX-OFFICER CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER
The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-yearold Black man, after appearing to mistake her handgun for her Taser was arrested on Wednesday and charged with second-degree manslaughter following three nights of protests over the killing.
The arrest of the officer, Kimberly A. Potter, who is White, came a day after she resigned from the Brooklyn Center Police Department, as did the Minneapolis suburb’s police chief. Hundreds of people have faced off with the police in Brooklyn Center each night since Wright’s death on Sunday, demanding that the former officer be charged.
Peter Orput, the top prosecutor in Washington County, said that Potter, 48, had been taken to jail and was awaiting a first court appearance.
Under Minnesota statutes, second-degree manslaughter can apply in cases where someone has created “unreasonable risk” and kills another person through negligence. The maximum punishment for a conviction is 10 years in prison.
The manslaughter charge suggests that prosecutors concur with a version of events laid out by city officials, that Potter did not intend to kill Wright but had mixed up her weapons. Orput said state investigators had determined that Potter holstered her Taser on her left side and her gun on her right so she would need to use her left hand when pulling out her Taser; the investigators found, he said, that she used her right hand to draw her weapon on Sunday.
A judge set bail for Potter at $100,000, or half of that if she agrees to surrender her passport, give up any guns or ammunition, and remain in Minnesota. Potter was being held in the Hennepin County Jail as of Wednesday afternoon. Potter’s lawyer, Earl Gray, did not respond to a request for comment.
It was uncertain whether the manslaughter charge would calm the growing outrage over Wright’s death.
Potter worked for the Police Department for 26 years and was training a younger officer on Sunday afternoon when they pulled Wright’s car over. Officials have said that he had an expired registration on his car and something hanging from his rearview mirror. When officers found that Wright had a warrant out for his arrest and attempted to detain him, he twisted away and got back into his car.
In body-camera footage released on Monday, Potter warned that she would use a stun gun on Wright and then shouted “Taser!” three times before firing once into his chest. Potter could be heard swearing and saying, “I just shot him.”