Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright last April after she said she mistook her handgun for a taser, has been sentenced to two years in prison. And almost immediately, the family of the slain Black man and local activists took umbrage at the meager sentence.
“This is multiple steps backward. This is hurtful and disrespectful for our community and the legal system in general,” Toshira Garraway, a local activist who founded the group Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence after her fiancé was killed by cops, told The Daily Beast.
“This sentence is disrespectful to Daunte Wright’s family and just a reminder that some people just don’t care about us,” she added. Shortly after the sentencing, two people were detained near the site of the sentencing, of whom a local CBS affiliate reported to be Wright’s sister.
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Potter, 49, was found guilty in December of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter over the April 11, 2021, traffic stop that ended in the 20-year-old Black man’s death. The white ex-cop resigned from the police department in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center as protests raged in an area already grappling with several high-profile deaths of Black men at the hands of law enforcement. Indeed, Derek Chauvin, the man who murdered George Floyd miles away, was on trial at the time.
Before Judge Regina Chu delivered her sentence, noting that Potter was likely to only spend 16 months behind bars before supervised release, some of Wright’s family members offered victim statements. They demanded a maximum sentence of 15 years because Potter “was a person of authority who betrayed her badge.”
“She took his life in a single shot to the heart, and took mine,” Katie Wright, his mother, said through tears before telling Potter directly, “I will never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us.”
After the sentence came down, Wright told reporters, “Kim Potter murdered my son. Today, the justice system murdered him all over again.”
Potter addressed the court before her sentencing, apologizing to the Wright family and the Brooklyn Center community for the incident she said had broken her heart.
“I am so sorry that I hurt you so badly. My heart is broken and devastated for all of you. I pray for Daunte and all of you many times a day. I do pray that one day you find forgiveness,” Potter said.
The judge seemed to side with Potter, stating that the facts in the case support a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines, noting that “the evidence is undisputed that Potter never intended to use her firearm.”
“This is a cop who made a tragic mistake. She withdrew her firearm thinking it was a taser and ended up killing a young man,” Chu said, later appearing to hold back tears as she explained her decision to render a significantly low sentence because Potter “never intended to hurt anyone.”
But the attorneys representing the Wright family did not seem to buy Chu’s logic, noting that their clients are “completely stunned...[and]also deeply disappointed there was not a greater level of accountability.”
“The judge’s comments at sentencing showed a clear absence of compassion for the victim in this tragedy and were devastating to the family. Judge Chu’s comments about Potter resembled those of a job recommendation and not that of a senseless and preventable death of a promising life,” the lawyers, who include civil rights attorney Ben Crump, said in a statement to The Daily Beast.
Garraway added that while the advocacy group had always planned to host a gathering Friday afternoon for Potter’s sentencing, she believes more people will join their protest “in outrage over this horrible sentence.”
Amity Dimock, whose 21-year-old son was shot six times by two Brooklyn Park police officers responding to a “disturbance call” at his grandparents’ house in an incident that later indirectly involved Potter, expressed her disappointment about the sentencing. She went so far as to say Chu “should be ashamed of herself.”
“I am beyond disappointed. I am broken-hearted for the Wright family, for my family, for all the families, and for the community,” Dimock told The Daily Beast. “People go to prison for longer for possession of weed! She murdered Daunte and I do not even remotely believe that the punishment fits the crime.”
The sentencing marks just another chapter in an ongoing struggle over police brutality in greater Minneapolis. This week alone, hundreds of residents gathered for the funeral of Amir Locke, the 22-year-old Black man who was fatally shot within seconds of Minneapolis police entering an apartment with a no-knock warrant for a case that had nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, three former police officers continue to face a federal civil-rights trial over the murder of Floyd in 2020.
All three incidents prompted protests in a state critics say has not done nearly enough to overhaul de-escalation and use-of-force policies.
Throughout a week-long trial last year, jurors found that Potter was criminally negligent during the incident that began as a traffic stop. Testifying in her defense, Potter emotionally recounted the events leading up to Wright’s death—and even suggested the whole event may not have even started if the officer she was training didn’t initiate the stop.
“We were trying to keep him from driving away. It just went chaotic,” Potter said through tears. “I remember yelling, ‘Taser! Taser! Taser!’ and nothing happened, and then [her fellow officer] told me I shot him.”
On Friday, Potter’s lawyer argued that the incident was an “unintentional crime” and a “mistake” that his client lives with every day. In asking for her to only receive probation, defense attorney Paul Engh added that Potter’s career in law enforcement is over and argued she is not a danger to the community.
But while Potter apologized for the incident and insisted she did not “want to hurt anybody,” prosecutors successfully walked jurors through the events that led to Wright’s death, calling her actions a “blunder of epic proportions.”
Potter’s partner, Brooklyn Center Officer Anthony Luckey, testified during the trial that the incident began when he and Potter pulled Wright over for allegedly expired car tabs. After performing a records check, Luckey said he soon discovered Wright had an outstanding gross misdemeanor warrant and asked him to step out of the car.
Body-cam footage replayed in court showed Wright exiting his car before quickly jumping back inside before Luckey could place him in handcuffs. Potter is then seen grabbing her handgun with her right hand before pointing it at Wright and yelling about the taser.
About a second later, Potter fired a single shot at Wright’s left side before his car appeared to speed away for a few blocks before eventually crashing into another vehicle.
“Oh my God!” Potter is heard telling Luckey in body-cam footage played to jurors. “Holy shit! I just shot him!” In another clip played in court, Potter can be seen sobbing on the ground, insisting she didn’t know what she did.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office concluded that Wright died from the gunshot and that his death was a homicide. Prosecutors successfully convinced jurors that Potter knew that the gun was on her right-dominant side and her taser on her left—and recklessly grabbed the wrong one during Wright’s arrest.
“Daunte’s life was cut short by Kim Potter, who claims she thought she had a taser.... She damaged my whole family’s heart. Everything we do ends in tears,” Arbuey Wright, his father, said Friday.
