The white police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright, 20, in a Minneapolis suburb after allegedly mistaking her firearm for a Taser during a routine traffic stop will be charged with second-degree manslaughter, prosecutors have said.
If convicted, Kimberly Potter faces up to ten years in prison or a fine of up to $20,000, or both. Potter, a veteran with 26 years of service, resigned from the force yesterday, as did Tim Gannon, the local police chief.
Wright’s family have rejected claims that the officer shot him accidentally.
Pete Orput, the top prosecutor in Washington County, said that the complaint would be filed today. Under Minnesotan state law, second-degree manslaughter applies when it is alleged that someone has caused death by “culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another”.
Wright’s death on Sunday has led to violence and looting this week in Brooklyn Center, in the north of the city, and 53 arrests.
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Protesters have ignored a dusk-to-dawn curfew, throwing rocks and bags of rubbish at police. Some used leaf-blowers to repel the tear gas fired by heavily armed officers, who responded with rubber bullets and flash bombs.
Last night, demonstrators clashed with police outside the Brooklyn Center police station for the third evening in a row, in violation of a citywide curfew.
Crowds gathered outside the local police station after a press conference on Monday during which a video of the shooting was released. It showed Potter firing her weapon at close range.
Police insisted that she had intended to use a Taser but pulled out her handgun by mistake. She can be heard on the video shouting “Taser” repeatedly before opening fire. Afterwards she exclaims: “Holy shit — I just shot him.”
However, Wright’s parents told ABC News yesterday that they did not accept that their son’s killing was accidental. Aubrey Wright, his father, said: “I lost my son — he’s never coming back. I can’t accept that. A mistake? That doesn’t even sound right. This officer has been on the force for 26 years. I can’t accept that.”
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Katie Wright, his mother, said that she had spoken to Daunte in the moments before he was shot. Police claimed that he had been stopped after they noticed an illegal air freshener, which can obstruct a drivers’ vision. “I know my son was scared. He’s afraid of the police, and I just seen and heard the fear in his voice,” she said. “But I don’t know why, and it should have never escalated the way it did.”
She paid tribute to her son as “an amazing, loving kid” who “had a big heart” and a bright smile and loved basketball. “He had a two-year-old son that’s not going to be able to play basketball with him,” she said. “He had sisters and brothers that he loved so much. He just had his whole life taken away from him. We had our hearts pulled out of our chests. He was my baby.”
Naisha Wright, Daunte’s aunt, told CNN: “An accident? No, come on now. I own a 20,000-volt Taser. They don’t feel nothing like a gun.” She added: “He didn’t deserve to die.”
Racial tensions were already running high in the city, with the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, taking place less than ten miles away. He is accused of murdering George Floyd, a black man who died last year after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest.
A former officer and expert on the use of force, Seth Stoughton, testified that his actions were “unreasonable, excessive and contrary to accepted practice”.
Chauvin’s defence team opened its arguments yesterday, after a fortnight of evidence presented by the prosecution that combined disturbing video clips with testimony from bystanders and Floyd’s family, as well as medical experts and a procession of police officers. Many condemned their former colleague’s actions.
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However, Barry Brodd, a retired Minneapolis Park Police officer and use of force expert, testified yesterday that Chauvin acted with proportionate and appropriate force, making him the first expert to do so. “From a police officer’s standpoint, you don’t have to wait for it to happen. You just have to have a reasonable fear that somebody is going to strike you, stab you, shoot you,” he said. “It’s easy to sit in an office and judge an officer’s conduct.”
Video of Floyd’s death in May prompted nationwide protests and a reckoning on race and policing. The verdict, expected next week, is seen as a defining moment for race relations in America. The 46-year-old father of five had moved to Minneapolis from Houston for work. He was arrested after allegedly trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill in a shop.
Yesterday a tragic link was revealed to exist between the lives of Floyd and Wright. Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, was Wright’s teacher at Edison High School in Minneapolis. She described the 20-year-old as “goofy” at a press conference with the Wright and Floyd families in attendance.
Kamala Harris, the vice-president, weighed in on the Daunte Wright shooting yesterday. “Prayers are not enough,” she wrote on Twitter. “Daunte Wright should still be with us. While an investigation is under way, our nation needs justice and healing, and Daunte’s family needs to know why their child is dead. They deserve answers.”
Court records show that Wright was wanted by police for possessing a gun without a licence, though the car he was driving was stopped because of an air freshener dangling on his rear-view mirror. Minnesota is one of several states that prohibit hanging items from a vehicle’s rear view mirror on the grounds that they could obstruct the driver’s vision.
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The minute-long video released by the police shows him at first complying with officers who attempt to handcuff him after stopping his car. On breaking free of an officer’s grip, he jumps back into the car, at which point he is shot. It is believed that Potter was training a new recruit.
‘Dedicated’ cop who made fatal error
In many ways Kimberly Potter was a model police officer (Alistair Dawber writes).
According to her LinkedIn page, which has now been removed, the 48-year-old joined the police in 1995 as a fledgling officer and appears since then to have had an unblemished record until the shooting of Daunte Wright on Sunday.
During her time with the police in Brooklyn Center, a city in Minnesota, she has served on the force’s union negotiation team and has been a union president for local officers.
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She has also been a longstanding member of the police’s memorial association, where she has served on the “casket team”, which carries the coffins of officers killed in the line of duty.
Potter earns more than $86,000 (£62,600), according to public records last updated in 2018. Married with two adult sons, she was placed on administrative leave first and yesterday afternoon resigned.
Many people, including the mayor of Brooklyn Center and Wright’s family, had called for her dismissal. Many more do not believe that an officer with so much experience could have mistaken her handgun for a Taser, as is being claimed by the police.
Fellow officers were standing by Potter yesterday. Brian Peters, head of the Minnesota police and peace officers association, told the Star Tribune: “She’s just a very dedicated, passionate, good person. It’s completely devastating. She [is] just a good person, always willing to help out.” Tim Gannon, chief of the Brooklyn Center police, said before they both resigned: “I think we can watch the video and ascertain whether she will be returning.”