KILLER MINNESOTA COP RESIGNS
VICTIM’S DEVASTATED FAMILY BLASTS FATAL ‘MISTAKE’ EXCUSE
A veteran Minnesota cop who fatally shot Black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop resigned from the force Tuesday, calling her exit from the suburban Brooklyn Center Police Department “in the best interest of the community.”
Kim Potter submitted her letter of resignation two days after her actions ended Wright’s life and sparked widespread outrage and protests. Her boss, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon, also stepped down Tuesday in an abrupt decision that Mayor Mike Elliott hailed as a sign the Minneapolis suburb was “turning over a new leaf.”
Wright’s parents challenged Gannon’s claim that Potter mistook her gun for her Taser when she pumped a single bullet into their unarmed son’s chest Sunday. “I lost my son. He’s never coming back. I can’t accept that — a mistake? That doesn’t even sound right,” dad Aubrey Wright said Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”
In her resignation letter, Potter declared that “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.”
Wright was stopped by police early Sunday afternoon due to expired registration tags, Gannon said Monday.
In a brief clip of Potter’s body cam video released to the public, a fellow officer is seen trying to handcuff Wright after the traffic stop turned up a warrant for his arrest related to a misdemeanor gun charge.
In the video, Potter is seen aiming her gun at Wright and shouting, “Taser! Taser! Taser!” as Wright tries to get back into his vehicle. She then fires once and says, “S—t, I just shot him.”
Wright was pronounced dead after crashing his vehicle several blocks away.
Daunte’s mother told “GMA” that her son was afraid of police.
His death came less than a year after police in nearby Minneapolis placed George Floyd in handcuffs and then pushed him facedown on the pavement until he stopped breathing.
Fired officer Derek Chauvin,
who is seen on graphic bystander video kneeling on Floyd’s neck as the Black man repeatedly begged for air and called out for his dead mother, is on trial in Minneapolis for second-degree murder in the case.
In 2016 in the nearby suburb of Falcon Heights, police fatally shot Black motorist Philando Castile during what also started as a routine traffic stop. The Minnesota public school employee was killed after he tried to explain he had a valid concealed carry permit for his weapon in the car.
Elliott said Tuesday he appreciated Potter’s resignation and believed Gannon’s exit also sent a positive signal to the community.
“We have to make sure that justice is served, justice is done. Daunte Wright deserves that, his family deserves that,” Elliott told reporters.
“We want to send the message to the community that we’re taking the situation very seriously. Although things did not unfold the way we thought, ultimately, they should unfold, we’re hoping that we’re turning over a new leaf now,” he said.
“We’re going to develop an approach that is community-based, that is based on working with the very strong voices in our community,” he vowed.
Gannon’s replacement, Acting Police Chief Tony Gruenig, called the situation at the Brooklyn Center Police Department “very chaotic right now.”
“I was just informed less than a half hour ago, or an hour ago, about the whole change in status. There’s just a lot of chaos going on right now. We’re just trying to wrap our heads around the situation and try and create some calm,” he said.
Asked about Gannon’s resignation, Wright family lawyer Benjamin Crump said “the family welcomes responsible leadership.”
“If ever there was a time when nobody in America should be killed by police, it was during this pinnacle trial of Derek Chauvin,” said Crump, who also represents Floyd’s family.
He said Floyd’s family had hoped police would be “on their best behavior” during the trial, exercising “the greatest standard of care” and concentrating “on deescalation in a way that they have never concentrated in America.”
Lawyer Jeff Storms, who also represents the Wright family, had harsh words for the Brooklyn Center Police Department. “It’s never an accident, and it’s never just one person. The problem is always bigger than that, and I think we saw that in how they acted to our peaceful protests,” he said.
Potter, 48, identified late Monday as the “veteran officer” who shot Wright, started her police career in 1995, when she was 22.
Local Minnesota news station KSTP reported Tuesday the Washington County attorney’s office, planned to announce one or more criminal charges against her on Wednesday.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the top charge might be, but in other cases of police fatally shooting people and later saying they mistook their guns for their Tasers, juries returned convictions for second-degree or involuntary manslaughter.
Two such cases involved the 2009 fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Black man Oscar Grant in Oakland, Calif., and the 2015 shooting death of Black man Eric Harris, 44, in Tulsa, Okla.
Several counties in Minnesota instituted curfews into Tuesday morning as protesters continued to demonstrate outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department building beyond the 7 p.m. Monday curfew.