Defense rests in trial of ex-minn. cop
Potter says April 11 traffic stop ‘just went chaotic’
MINNEAPOLIS – The defense has rested in the trial of a Minnesota police officer charged in the fatal shooting of Black motorist Daunte Wright.
Kim Potter, 49, is charged with manslaughter in Wright’s death during a trafficstopapril11intheminneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center.
Potter has said she meant to use her Taser to subdue Wright when he pulled away from officers and got back into his car as they tried to arrest him on a warrant for a weapons violation. She shot him once with her handgun.
The defense wrapped up its case soon after Potter took the stand Friday to testify to her actions. Potter, who resigned two days after the shooting, broke down in tears at one point as she said the traffic stop “just went chaotic” after Wright tried to get into his car and leave.
Potter was training a new officer when that officer pulled Wright over for expired license plate tags and an air freshener hanging from his mirror. Potter said that if she had been alone, she probably wouldn’t have made the stop.
Potter acknowledged on cross-examination that she had been extensively trained on the use of force and use of Tasers.
Potter’s attorneys have argued that she made a mistake but also would have been within her rights to use deadly force if she had meant to because another officer was at risk of being dragged by Wright’s car.
Before Potter took the stand, a witness called by her lawyers testified that police officers can mistakenly draw their guns instead of their Tasers under high-stress situations because their ingrained training takes over.
Laurence Miller, a psychologist who teaches at Florida Atlantic University, said Friday that the more someone repeats the same act, the less they have to think about it and there can be circumstances during a stressful situation in
which someone’s normal reactions may be “hijacked.”
The death of Wright set off angry demonstrations for several days in Brooklyn Center. It happened as another white officer, Derek Chauvin, was standing trial in nearby Minneapolis for the killing of George Floyd.
Prosecutors argue that Potter was an experienced officer who had been thoroughly trained in the use of a Taser, including warnings about the danger of confusing one with a handgun. They have to prove recklessness or culpable negligence in order to win a conviction on the manslaughter charges.
Miller said that when a person learns a new skill, memory of an old skill might override that, resulting in an “action error” in which an intended action has an unintended effect.
“You intend to do one thing, think you’re doing that thing, but do something else and only realize later that the action that you intended was not the one you took,” he said.
Miller said it happens all the time and is often trivial, like writing the wrong year on a check early in January. There are also more serious examples of action error, such as when a doctor might use an old approach to treat someone even after being trained in a newer one, he said.
The person committing the error, “thinks they are performing one action when they are performing something else,” Miller said. When the intended result does not occur, they realize it, he said.
“If it’s a high-stress circumstance, extremely high arousal” the person is more susceptible to making a mistake that can put their life in danger, said
Miller, who said the most typical example of “weapon confusion” is when an officer confuses a gun for a Taser.
He said it is called “slip and capture,” meaning that under a state of high arousal and hyper focus, the ability to choose the correct response slips away and is “captured” by the more baked-in knowledge that a person has had for a longer time.
Some experts are skeptical of the theory. Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who is not involved in the trial, has said there’s no science behind it.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Erin Eldridge read to Miller from a 2010 article he wrote in which he described how police can avoid what he termed “one big mistake.” He wrote that many such mistakes are preventable through proper training and practice.
Eldridge said the term slip and capture has been termed “junk science” and has no foundation in the general field of psychology. Miller said the term is not common, but the theory behind it is.
The defense began its case on Thursday. Among those testifying was Potter’s chief at the time, Tim Gannon. Gannon called Potter “a fine officer” and said he “saw no violation” of policy by her in the traffic stop.
Gannon resigned two days after the shooting, saying he was essentially forced out because he wouldn’t immediately fire Potter. Potter resigned the same day.
Gannon testified that it appeared to him from dashcam video that Sgt. Mychal Johnson, who was assisting in the stop, was “leaning into” Wright’s car. He said it was his opinion that deadly force was reasonable.
Use-of-force expert Stephen Ijames, a former assistant police chief in Springfield, Missouri, testified Thursday that officers were legally bound to arrest Wright after discovering he had a warrant for an outstanding weapons violation.
After Potter shot Wright, his car took off and crashed seconds later into an oncoming vehicle, hurting his passenger and someone in the other car.
The case is being heard by a mostly white jury.
“You intend to do one thing, think you’re doing that thing, but do something else and only realize later that the action that you intended was not the one you took.” Laurence Miller Florida Atlantic University psychologist