Jury selection starts in manslaughter trial of ex-cop who killed Daunte Wright
Jury selection started Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Minnesota police officer charged in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright.
The veteran cop — who resigned two days after the shooting earlier this year that sparked protests in the city of Brooklyn Center — has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter.
The charges — for neither of which prosecutors need to prove intent to kill — carry a maximum sentence of 15 years and 10 years, respectively.
Jury selection in Hennepin County District Court is expected to take about a week with opening statements slated to start Dec. 8.
Potter, 49, was training a rookie on April 11 when she fatally shot Wright, 20, after he tried to drive away from a routine traffic stop in the city just north of Minneapolis — where ex-cop Derek Chauvin was in the middle of the trial that found him guilty of murdering George Floyd in May 2020.
Wright’s shooting was caught in graphic bodycam footage, with Potter shouting, “I’ll tase you” as he resisted arrest over an outstanding warrant on a weapons violation.
“Taser, Taser, Taser!” she yelled — before swearing after realizing she had pulled her gun instead and shot Wright in the chest. The young motorist drove off and crashed nearby, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Potter was heard saying on the bodycam footage, “I’m going to prison.”
However, her legal team has insisted that the videos show she made “an innocent mistake.”
“An accident is not a crime,” one of Potter’s attorneys, Paul Engh, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Her defense has also said it plans to argue that Wright caused his own death by refusing to comply with the officers’ warnings and putting them at risk as he tried to drive off.
However, prosecutors are seeking a lengthy prison sentence, insisting the 26-year police veteran was too experienced to make such a mistake.
They also insisted in pretrial filings that Potter should not have even used her Taser, saying the officers could have let Wright drive off and then detained him later.
Potential jurors were asked about what they knew about the case as well as whether they or anyone close to them participated “in any of the demonstrations or marches related to policing that took place in the Twin Cities area in the last two years.”
They were also asked if they felt that the community had been “positively or negatively affected by any of the demonstrations.”
There was also a question about whether they support reforming or defunding the police.
Judge Regina Chu told them that the “sole purpose and our obligation is to ensure that the jurors who decide this case are neutral, open-minded and fair.”
“Your verdict must be based on the evidence you hear during the trial,” the judge said.
Wright’s mother, Katie, told the Star Tribune that it has been “nerve-racking” waiting for the trial.
“Anxiety, hurt, anger, stress … every emotion you can think of, I’ve been feeling it,” she said.
Some local activists have already warned of more protests if the ex-cop is acquitted.
“I think there will be a level of anger, and people will take to the streets like they did after the murder of George Floyd,” Zaynab Mohamed of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Associated Press.
With Post wires
