Ex-Minnesota police officer found guilty of manslaughter in shooting of Daunte Wright

(Reuters) - A Minnesota jury yesterday found former police officer Kimberly Potter guilty of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop when she mistakenly fired her handgun instead of her Taser.

A 12-member jury declared Potter, 49, guilty of firstdegree and second-degree manslaughter in the death of the 20-year-old Wright, whom she killed in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center on April 11 with a bullet to the chest.

Potter, who broke down last week on the stand as she testified to her remorse for the shooting, showed little emotion as Judge Regina Chu read the verdict and polled the jury. Potter was taken away in handcuffs after Chu rejected her attorney's plea for her to be allowed to spend Christmas with family.

"I am going to require that she be taken into custody and held without bail," Chu said. "I cannot treat this case any differently than any other case."

Potter will be sentenced on Feb. 18. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years on the first-degree manslaughter conviction. Under state law, defendants cannot be sentenced for multiple charges pertaining to the same act.

The shooting sparked multiple nights of intense demonstrations in Brooklyn Center. It happened just a few miles north of where Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was at the same time standing trial https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jurors-resumedeliberations-derek-chauvin-murder-trial-2021-04-20 for killing George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 death during an arrest had set off protests in U.S. cities over racism and police brutality.

Chauvin was convicted of murder. Both he and Potter are white.

Caught on Potter's body-worn camera, the basic facts of the incident were for the most part not in dispute. Both prosecutors and the defense attorneys agreed that Potter mistakenly drew the wrong weapon and never meant to kill Wright.

At issue was whether the jury would find her actions to be reckless in violation of the state's manslaughter statutes, or chalk up the incident to a tragic mistake that did not warrant criminal liability.