MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Kim Potter, the former suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she confused her handgun for her Taser when she fatally shot Daunte Wright, was sentenced Friday to two years in prison. Wright’s family denounced the verdict as too lenient and accused the judge of giving more consideration to the white officer than the Black victim.
Potter was convicted in December of first- and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11 killing of Wright, a 20-year-old Black motorist. She was sentenced only on the more serious charge in accordance with state law.
Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, said after the sentencing that Potter “murdered my son,” adding: “Today the justice system murdered him all over again.” She also accused the judge of being taken in by “white woman’s tears” after Potter cried during her statement ahead of sentencing.
Speaking before the sentence was imposed, a tearful Wright said she could never forgive Potter and that she would refer to her only as “the defendant” because Potter only referred to her son as “the driver” at trial.
“She never once said his name. And for that I’ll never be able to forgive you. And I’ll never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us,” said Wright, who also sometimes uses the last name Bryant.
“Daunte Demetrius Wright, I will continue to fight in your name until driving while Black is no longer a death sentence,” she said.
Potter offered an apology to Wright’s family, then spoke directly to his mother: “Katie, I understand a mother’s love. I’m sorry I broke your heart … my heart is broken and devastated for all of you.”
The judge, who imposed a sentence below state guidelines, called it “one of the saddest cases I’ve had on my 20 years on the bench.” Judge Regina Chu said she received “hundred and hundreds” of letters in support of Potter. “On the one hand, a young man was killed and on the other, a respected 26-year veteran police officer made a tragic error by pulling her handgun instead of her Taser.”
Chu said the lesser sentence was warranted because Potter was “in the line of duty and doing her job in attempting to lawfully arrest Daunte Wright,” and Potter was trying to protect another officer who could have been dragged and seriously injured if Wright drove away.
Wright was killed after Brooklyn Center officers pulled him over for having expired license tags and an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. The shooting, which came in the midst of Derek Chauvin’s trial on murder charges in George Floyd’s killing, sparked several days of demonstrations outside the Brooklyn Center police station marked by tear gas and clashes between protesters and police.
Wright family attorney Ben Crump said the family was stunned by the sentence, saying they didn’t understand why such consideration was given to a white officer in the killing of a young Black man when a Black officer, Mohamed Noor, got a longer sentence in 2017 for the killing of a white woman, Justine Ruszczyk Damond.
“What we see today is the legal system in Black and white.”
But the judge said the case was not the same as other high-profile killings by police.
“This is not a cop found guilty of murder for using his knee to pin down a person for 9½ minutes as he gasped for air. This is not a cop found guilty of manslaughter for intentionally drawing his firearm and shooting across his partner and killing an unarmed woman who approached his squad,” Chu said. “This is a cop who made a tragic mistake.”
For someone with no criminal history, such as Potter, the state guidelines on first-degree manslaughter range from slightly more than six years to about 8½ years in prison, with the presumptive sentence being just over seven years.
