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Daunte Wright Police Kill Another Unarmed Man In Minneapolis (Story Developing)

Key Moments in the Kimberly Potter Trial Over Daunte Wright’s Death

After a week and a half of testimony and closing arguments, the case went to the jury on Monday.

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Dec. 20, 2021, 6:27 p.m. ET

www.nytimes.com

Key Moments in the Kimberly Potter Trial Over Daunte Wright’s Death

After a week and a half of testimony and closing arguments, the case went to the jury on Monday.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

As Daunte Wright lay mortally wounded in the driver’s seat of his car, the police officer who had fired a single bullet into his chest collapsed on the side of the road, sobbing as she explained that she had thought she was holding her Taser. “I’m going to go to prison,” she said, on video captured at the scene in April.

Jurors are now deliberating over the fate of the officer, Kimberly Potter, after hearing testimony from 33 witnesses and closing arguments over nearly two weeks in a Minneapolis courtroom. Ms. Potter faces charges of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter, and a conviction on either count would probably send her to prison for several years.

Ms. Potter, 49, who is white, resigned from the police force in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb, two days after the fatal shooting of Mr. Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was driving to get his car washed.

Here are key moments from the trial.

A prosecutor and Ms. Potter’s lawyer clashed over whether her mistake was a crime.

In closing arguments on Monday, a prosecutor and the lead lawyer for Ms. Potter made their final pitches to the jurors about whether Ms. Potter was criminally culpable in Mr. Wright’s death.

Erin Eldridge, a prosecutor, told jurors that they should find Ms. Potter guilty because she acted recklessly and violated the policies she was trained to follow by mixing up her Taser and her gun, costing Mr. Wright his life.

“Accidents can still be crimes,” Ms. Eldridge said. She later added, “This was a colossal screw-up, a blunder of epic proportions.”

Earl Gray, Ms. Potter’s lawyer, followed Ms. Eldridge and told jurors that his client should not be sent to prison for a shooting that prosecutors concede was an accident.

“This lady here made a mistake, and my gosh, a mistake is not a crime,” Mr. Gray said, motioning toward Ms. Potter.

He also argued that Mr. Wright had “caused his own death” by attempting to flee from a police officer who was trying to arrest him on a warrant.
In rebuttal, another prosecutor, Matt Frank, said he found Mr. Gray’s arguments about justification and fault “somewhat stunning.” He accused Ms. Potter’s lawyers of making “factually wrong and legally wrong” arguments, and said that Ms. Potter’s own distraught reaction, in the seconds after the shooting, showed that she did not believe that she had been justified in firing her gun.

Ms. Potter testified that she was ‘sorry it happened.’

Ms. Potter took the witness stand in her own defense on the last day of her trial. She broke down several times as she described a “chaotic” scene during the traffic stop on April 11 and said she had significant holes in her memory.

“I’m sorry it happened,” Ms. Potter testified through tears. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

Ms. Potter said she remembered little about what happened in the moments after the shooting.

“I remember yelling ‘Taser! Taser! Taser!’ and nothing happened, and then he told me I shot him,” Ms. Potter told the jurors. In body camera footage, Mr. Wright can be heard saying “Ah, he shot me” before his car lurched forward and crashed down the block.

During cross-examination, a prosecutor questioned Ms. Potter intensely over her reason for pulling her gun, asking if Mr. Wright had threatened or punched an officer or if Ms. Potter had seen a gun in his car. Each time, Ms. Potter responded with “No.”

The prosecutor, Erin Eldridge, also displayed side-by-side photographs of Ms. Potter’s Taser, which is mostly yellow, and her handgun, a Glock that is entirely black.

“These items look different, don’t they?” Ms. Eldridge asked.

“Yes,” Ms. Potter replied.

The prosecutor also asked Ms. Potter whether she knew her left from her right — she carried her gun on the right side of her police belt and her Taser on the left.

Ms. Potter testified that she believed that she had never fired her Taser while on patrol during the 19 years she had carried one on her belt, though she had drawn it in the past.

She also said that she likely would not have pulled Mr. Wright’s car over had she not been training a rookie police officer who wanted to do so. That officer, Anthony Luckey, pulled Mr. Wright over because Mr. Wright had an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and the car’s registration was expired.

‘What have I done?’ Ms. Potter collapsed, sobbing, in video shown for the first time

Since the shooting on April 11, the public had seen only a roughly minute-long video of Ms. Potter threatening to stun Mr. Wright with her Taser and shouting “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before she fired a single bullet into his chest.

But at the trial, jurors saw new body camera and police dash camera videos that were played publicly for the first time.
“I grabbed the wrong gun,” Ms. Potter says, using an expletive, in one video that captured the moments immediately after the shooting. She collapses to the ground, sobbing, as two fellow officers try to comfort her.

At one point in the videos, she suggested killing herself. Several minutes later, a fellow officer, Sgt. Mychal Johnson, took a gun from her holster and surreptitiously emptied it of ammunition before returning it to her, fearing that she might shoot herself.

Prosecutors played the videos several times in court, likely trying to show jurors that Ms. Potter believed, at the time, that she had done something wrong, or even broken the law.

“What have I done?” she said several times. As the videos were shown in court, Ms. Potter shook and cried.

But there were also parts of the video that aided the defense. When Ms. Potter said she was going to go to prison, Sergeant Johnson, one of two other officers at the scene of the shooting, responded: “Kim, that guy was trying to take off with me in the car.”

Whether that was true has become a key point of contention at trial.

Prosecutors and Ms. Potter’s lawyers agree that Ms. Potter did not mean to fire her gun, but prosecutors have argued that the mistake was so reckless that she should be imprisoned. Defense lawyers have said that she was right to try to use her Taser to stop Mr. Wright from fleeing, but that she also would have been justified even if she had intended to use her gun, because Sergeant Johnson was in danger of being dragged.

Daunte Wright’s mother broke down on the stand

Mr. Wright’s mother, Katie Bryant, cried several times as she recounted being on the phone with Mr. Wright just seconds before he was killed.

Mr. Wright was driving to a carwash with a woman he had recently started seeing when he was pulled over.

Ms. Bryant said her son sounded nervous when he called her during the traffic stop. She told him things would be fine, but then the call abruptly ended. The officers had discovered that a judge had issued a warrant for Mr. Wright’s arrest after he missed a court date on charges of illegally possessing a gun and running from the police. When an officer tried to handcuff Mr. Wright, he pulled away and got back in the driver’s seat.

Ms. Bryant said she frantically tried to call her son back. Eventually, his companion, Alayna Albrecht-Payton, answered the video call and screamed that Mr. Wright had been shot. Ms. Albrecht-Payton turned the phone toward the driver’s seat, and Ms. Bryant saw her son slumped there.

Ms. Bryant testified that she sped to the scene of the shooting in Brooklyn Center and knew that her son was dead when she saw his shoes sticking out from a white sheet.

“I wanted to comfort my baby, I wanted to hold him,” Ms. Bryant testified through tears. “I wanted to protect him because that’s what mothers do. We protect our children and make sure that they’re safe.”

The prosecution’s own police witnesses defended Ms. Potter, as did the former police chief.

One police officer testified that Ms. Potter was right to use her Taser on Mr. Wright. Another went further, saying that even had Ms. Potter intended to use her gun, it would have been justified. And a third called Ms. Potter “a good cop” and suggested it might have been reasonable for Ms. Potter to shoot Mr. Wright.

All three of the officers worked for the Brooklyn Center Police Department, and all bolstered parts of Ms. Potter’s defense. They were also all put on the stand by prosecutors.

Perhaps most significant was the testimony of Sergeant Johnson, who said, in response to questions from Ms. Potter’s lawyers, that he had been in danger of being seriously hurt or killed if Mr. Wright had driven off while he was still leaning into the passenger side of the car. Sergeant Johnson testified that although Ms. Potter had intended to use her Taser, she had been justified in using her gun, under Minnesota law, in order to save him from suffering serious harm or death.

Tim Gannon, who was the chief of the Brooklyn Center Police Department for five and a half years before he was forced to resign in the wake of the shooting, testified that Ms. Potter was a good officer who had not broken his department’s rules when she killed Mr. Wright.

Mr. Gannon, who was called by the defense, said that when he reviewed videos of the shooting, he saw “no violation — of policy, procedure or law.”

“There’s certain things within the department that you get known for,” he said. “Are you handling your calls? Are you professional when you talk with people? Are you doing good police reports? She was known for doing all of those things.”

Two policing experts clashed over whether it was OK to use a Taser or a gun in the situation.

To an expert hired by prosecutors, Ms. Potter had acted inappropriately when she fired her gun, but she also would have been in the wrong had she successfully used her Taser. To an expert testifying for the defense, using a Taser would have been in line with best policing practices, but Ms. Potter was also justified in firing her gun in the circumstances she was facing.

The prosecution expert, Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and a former police officer, said Mr. Wright had not posed a threat that warranted the firing of Ms. Potter’s gun and that she had fired it in an inappropriate condition — in proximity to a fellow officer and Mr. Wright’s passenger in the front seat of a car. Stunning Mr. Wright with a Taser would also have been too risky to be appropriate, he said.

“It’s really dangerous to incapacitate — the way the Taser can incapacitate — someone who is in a position to get a vehicle moving,” Mr. Stoughton said. “You can create an unguided hazard.”

When the defense lawyers had their turn to question an expert, they called Steve Ijames, who had worked as a police officer in Missouri for about 42 years. He said that if Sergeant Johnson was leaning into the car, Ms. Potter was justified in firing her gun, and that she also would have been right to use her Taser.

“If that car gets in drive, it’s going to get bad,” Mr. Ijames said. “The Taser is that unique device that, when performing as designed and intended, would have put a stop to it.”
 
Who are the jurors for trial of Kim Potter?

By AMY FORLITI and STEVE KARNOWSKI
December 3, 2021

apnews.com

EXPLAINER: Who are the jurors for trial of Kim Potter?

The jurors who will hear testimony in former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter's trial in the death of Daunte Wright are a mostly white group, with two people who identify as Asian and one as Black.
apnews.com apnews.com

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A look at the jurors who will hear testimony in the manslaughter trial of former suburban Minneapolis police officer Kim Potter, who is charged in the April shooting death of 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright. Potter says she meant to use her Taser on Wright and drew her gun by mistake. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.

The jurors are anonymous by order of the court. The 12 who will deliberate if no alternates are needed include nine who identify as white, two who are Asian and one who is Black. The two alternates are white. The panel is evenly divided on gender.

JUROR NO. 2

A white man in his 50s with a master’s degree, he works as a medical editor. He said he considers himself to be an analytical person, and that in his job he knows how to take a subjective matter and process it as objectively as possible.

He said he has a “very unfavorable” view of the pro-police “blue lives matter” slogan, saying he believes it’s more of a counter against the Black Lives Matter movement rather than real support for police. But he also said he opposes cutting funding for police.

“I absolutely believe there’s a need for change,” he said. “But I think defund the police sends a message, a negative message. I think it sends an emotionally loaded message rather than, ‘we need reform.’ It’s ‘let’s just abolish.’ ... I don’t agree with that message, and I don’t agree with the approach.”

He wrote in his questionnaire that he thinks the criminal justice system isn’t fair for everyone, and that people with superior legal resources have an advantage.

JUROR NO. 6

A white woman in her 60s, Juror No. 6 is a retired special education teacher who also taught English to immigrants and said she loves true crime shows.

She is a mother of four adult daughters, one of whom died nearly two years ago from breast cancer. She said this time of year is hard, and she worries about becoming emotional during the trial, but didn’t think it would affect her ability to concentrate.

She said she could be fair and impartial to both sides, recounting a former student calling her “strict-fair.”

She said she doesn’t understand how something like Wright’s death could happen, but also said: “I really feel for any law enforcement because things can happen just so, so quickly.”

JUROR NO. 7

Juror No. 7 is a white man in his 20 who works overnights as an operations manager at a large retailer and manages a team of 110 people. He is also a bassist in an alternative rock band.

He has cousins in law enforcement outside of Hennepin County. He also has a friend who was mugged, but said it wouldn’t affect his ability to be fair in the case.

He also said that he took a gun safety course when he was about 14 and that he carried a stun gun when he was traveling with his band for protection. The stun gun was confiscated in Canada and he has not gotten a new one.

On his questionnaire, he wrote that he was slightly distrustful of police and believes they have a hard job, but they should also be held to the highest level of scrutiny.

No. 7 told the judge he was concerned that people could discern his identity from questions asked during jury selection, but ultimately said he was comfortable remaining on the panel.

JUROR NO. 11

Juror No. 11 is an Asian woman in her 40s, who described herself as a “rule follower.” She said believes police officers should be respected, and on a questionnaire said she somewhat agreed that police officers should not be second-guessed for decisions they make on the job.

“I think sometimes you just react, and sometimes it might be a wrong reaction, but, you know, mistakes happen,” she said. “People make mistakes.”

Still, she said she would make a decision based on the evidence.

She said that she lives “kind of” in an area that was affected by protests last summer and she heard gunshots while at home, something she called “very scary.”

She has a friend who was killed in a stabbing but said it would not affect her view of the trial. She has a brother who served in the Marines.

JUROR NO. 17

Juror No. 17 is a white woman in her 20s who said she recently graduated and is working full time, though no specifics were given. She said she didn’t know enough about the people involved in the case to have an impression of either Potter or Wright, and said she would keep an open mind and listen to all the evidence before making a decision.

She said the protests in the Twin Cities had a negative impact on the community because of the property damage that happened.

She said she somewhat disagreed with defunding the police, saying, “You’re always going to need police officers.”

JUROR NO. 19

Juror No. 19 is a Black woman in her 30s, a teacher and mother of two who said she carries a small purple stun gun in her purse for personal protection. She also is a gun owner with a permit to carry.

She said she saw the video of Potter shooting Wright and said it was chaotic.

“I remember panic in the video,” she said. She had a somewhat negative impression of both Wright and Potter, saying of Potter: “Having this much experience, you know, in that moment, where did your lapse in judgment come from?”

She lives near a shopping center that was damaged in the unrest following Wright’s death. She indicated she considers both Black Lives Matter and blue lives matter to be divisive.

She strongly disagreed that police officers should not be second-guessed for their decisions.

“This is a servitude job, and when you get into this position, you need to understand that it’s a tough job and so you have to maintain that level of professionalism when you get into that position.”

She said that she believes there is more negative information in the media about people with different skin color.

She was asked if she worried about fallout in her community if she decided to acquit Potter, and she said, “No. That is not a concern for me.”

No. 19 said she had never been trained on her stun gun nor used it, and could set aside anything she knows about her device in evaluating evidence at trial.

JUROR NO. 21

Juror No. 21 is a white man in his 40s, who served on a jury once before — in a case involving protesters and trespassing roughly 10 years ago. He said it wouldn’t affect his ability to be fair in Potter’s trial.

He said on his questionnaire that he had “somewhat negative” impressions of both Potter and Wright.

Asked why about Wright, he said, “I don’t condone fleeing from a police officer.” About Potter, he said, “When training fellow officers, your actions should be more thought out.”

He’s married with young children, but didn’t say how many. He has a brother-in-law who’s a federal law enforcement agent in Washington, D.C. He gave no details about his own profession.

He said demonstrations about policing over the past couple of years have had both positive and negative impacts on the community — positive because they started eye-opening conversations but negative because of the looting.

He also wrote on his questionnaire that he was neutral on blue lives matter. “It feels like marketing,” he wrote. “Of course all lives matter, but cops aren’t dying at nearly the same rate.”

JUROR NO. 22

Juror No. 22 is a white man in his 60s, who has been a registered nurse since 1994 and is studying to become a nurse practitioner.

He said he strongly agrees that police make him feel safe and he somewhat agrees that their actions shouldn’t be second-guessed. “You know, they’ve got a difficult job. And maybe it’s just me but I, I don’t know that I necessarily raise them up to a higher standard, but I certainly expect them to be law abiding.”

He also said he trusts the police “until prove otherwise,” adding that he expects police will protect him.

He is also a gun owner, and uses his guns for hunting waterfowl. He said: “The ducks are pretty safe when I’m out there,” prompting some laughter in the courtroom. He called himself a “responsible gun owner” and said he has been hunting since he was a child.

He said in his questionnaire that Potter “possibly made an error” based on a short video clip he saw. He said he believed Potter when she said she didn’t mean to shoot Wright.

JUROR NO. 26

Juror No. 26 is an Asian woman in her 20s who was reluctant to be on the panel, saying she has a lot of friends and family who “are very opinionated in the matter,” she said.

She said she could set their influence aside.

She said her workplace was damaged during a recent demonstration over policing, and that it made her “angry and upset” because she though those who did the damage were just taking advantage of the protests.

The woman said she’s finishing a degree and has finals and job interviews coming up in a couple of weeks. She said she wasn’t certain if she could postpone them all.

JUROR NO. 40

Juror No. 40 is a white man in his 40s who said he once wanted to become a police officer, but changed his mind before going to college because he was “afraid that I would end up having to use my gun.” He has worked in IT security for the last 20 years.

He had a somewhat negative impression of both Potter and Wright, saying Potter should have had enough “muscle memory” to know which side of her body her Taser was on. He said he could be critical of both sides at trial though.

He also said he would have a hard time following the law if he disagreed with it. As an example, he cited an instance in which he was pulled over on his motorcycle because his tailpipe was too loud — something he called subjective.

He also said he owns a shotgun, but hasn’t used it in 20 years, and he said he has been arrested for drunken driving.

The man expressed concerns about serving on the jury, saying that he didn’t want his information to come out after a verdict, fearing for his family’s safety. He said he didn’t fear one particular group or side more than another.

He strongly agreed that police in his community make him feel safe, but said he strongly disagrees that police should not be second-guessed for their decisions.

When it comes to Black Lives Matter, he said has a somewhat favorable impression, saying in his questionnaire that the group is important for raising awareness but he sees little change coming out of it. He explained in court that he believes it takes generations for change to happen. He also has a somewhat favorable opinion of blue lives matter, saying police officers have a risky job.

JUROR NO. 48

Juror No. 48 is a white woman in her 40s, a mother of two who used to work as an IT project manager and has also worked as an elections judge.

She said on her questionnaire that Wright should not have died for something like expired tags, saying what happened did not match the presumed crime. She said she could leave that initial impression aside, as well as other information she heard about the case, and reach a verdict based on what she hears in court.

She also said she had attended a rally at the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building to protest “children being in cages at the border.”

She said some of her friends and neighbors have signs in their yard or expressed opinions about police reform on social media but she has not. She said the only bumper sticker she has is “one referencing Dr. Who.”

She said she somewhat disagrees that police officers make her feel safe, saying she is just kind of nervous around anyone in authority.

She grew up on a farm outside Minnesota.

JUROR NO. 55

Juror No. 55 is a white man in his 50s, a Navy veteran and former Boy Scout leader who said he competes in medieval steel combat in his spare time.

“I put on steel armor and pick up steel weapons and hit my friends with them,” he said. “It’s a very fun time. … it’s my Monday night football, so to speak.”

The man, who is a field systems engineer for a cybersecurity company, said that he was stunned as part of his Navy training decades ago, but would have no problem setting aside his experience and reaching a verdict based on the evidence.

He said he saw a short video clip of the shooting only once, and thought the situation was stressful because it looked like a lot of things were happening at once, but he had no real opinions on Potter or Wright.

He said he has a somewhat unfavorable impression of blue lives matter, saying “You can choose your vocation, but you can’t chose your skin color.”

His wife and daughter were victims of an attempted carjacking last year. He said that would not affect his ability to be a juror.

He said protests in the Minneapolis area over the last two years have been positive overall because regularly examining what leaders and law enforcers are doing is good for society.

He said systemic racism is a problem in the system, but he doesn’t think that affects this case.

JUROR NO. 57

An alternate, Juror No. 57 is a white woman in her 70s who has lived in Minneapolis almost all her life.

Asked about a statement on her questionnaire that the George Floyd case had made her sad, she said it “caused a lot of trauma in our city.” She said one positive of protests in Minneapolis has been that people have been re-examining tough issues.

“I generally trust the police, but there are occasions when we cannot trust the police,” she said.

She said her father was an FBI agent and an attorney, and she had other family members who were attorneys.

JUROR NO. 58

Also an alternate, Juror No. 58 is a white man in his 30s with a 2-year-old at home. He said he is good friends with a St. Paul police officer who is the godfather of his daughter. He said his friend is “an awesome dude,” but he recognizes that police officers are all different.

He strongly disagreed that people don’t give police officers the respect they deserve, saying in his community, police officers have a lot of respect.
 
Jury in Potter trial ends another day without verdict

The Associated Press and Jon Collins
Minneapolis
December 21, 2021 5:10 a.m.

www.mprnews.org

Jury in Potter trial ends another day without verdict

A jury has concluded deliberations in the trial for the day. The former Brooklyn Center officer says she meant to use her Taser instead of her gun when she fatally shot Daunte Wright. The jury Tuesday afternoon asked two questions, one of which was about difficulty reaching a decision.
www.mprnews.org www.mprnews.org

A jury concluded another day of deliberations Tuesday without a verdict in the trial of former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter, who says she meant to use her Taser instead of her gun when she shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April.

Jurors asked two questions Tuesday afternoon, one of which was about instructions in case they can't reach consensus on charges.

"The first question is: If the jury cannot reach consensus what is the guidance is around how long and what steps should be taken?" Judge Regina Chu told the question to the courtroom. The judge read her instructions again with eye towards reaching agreement.

Jurors also asked if the zip ties can be removed from Potter's gun so it can be held outside evidence box, which the judge allowed.

Defense attorney Paul Engh objected to the judge's decision on both the questions from the jurors, saying the gun should remain zip-tied for safety reasons and that "by emphasizing one paragraph only, you’re giving an undue influence to a particular section of the instruction."

So far, the jurors have deliberated for more than 14 hours. Deliberations will resume Wednesday morning.

The jury met for about a five hours Monday following closing arguments in which prosecutors accused Potter of a “blunder of epic proportions” in Wright's death in an April 11 traffic stop — but said a mistake was no defense.

Potter's attorneys countered that Wright, who was attempting to get away from officers as they sought to handcuff him for an outstanding warrant on a weapons charge, “caused the whole incident.”

Potter, who is white, is charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter. If convicted of the most serious charge, Potter, 49, would face a sentence of about seven years under state guidelines, though prosecutors have said they will seek more.

The mostly white jury got the case after about a week and a half of testimony about an arrest that went awry, setting off angry protests in Brooklyn Center just as nearby Minneapolis was on edge over Derek Chauvin's trial in George Floyd's death. Potter resigned two days after Wright's death.

Prosecutor Erin Eldridge called Wright’s death “entirely preventable. Totally avoidable.” She urged the jury not to excuse it as a mistake: "Accidents can still be crimes if they occur as a result of reckless or culpable negligence."

“She drew a deadly weapon,” Eldridge said. “She aimed it. She pointed it at Daunte Wright’s chest, and she fired.”

Potter's attorney Earl Gray argued that Wright was to blame for trying to flee from police. Potter mistakenly grabbed her gun instead of her Taser because the traffic stop “was chaos,” he said.

“Daunte Wright caused his own death, unfortunately,” he said. He also argued that shooting Wright wasn't a crime.

“In the walk of life, nobody’s perfect. Everybody makes mistakes," Gray said. “My gosh, a mistake is not a crime. It just isn’t in our freedom-loving country."

Potter testified Friday that she “didn’t want to hurt anybody” and that she was “sorry it happened."

Eldridge said the case wasn’t about whether Potter was sorry.

“Of course she feels bad about what she did. … But that has no place in your deliberations,” she said.

Playing Potter’s body camera video frame by frame, Eldridge sought to raise doubts about Potter’s testimony that she fired after seeing “fear” on the face of another officer, then-Sgt. Mychal Johnson, who was leaning into the car’s passenger-side door and trying to handcuff Wright.

The defense has argued that Johnson was at risk of being dragged and that Potter would have been justified in using deadly force. But Eldridge pointed out that for much of the interaction Potter was behind a third officer, whom she was training, and that Johnson didn't come into her camera's view until after the shot was fired — and then it showed the top of his head as he backed away.

“Sgt. Johnson was clearly not afraid of being dragged,” Eldridge said. “He never said he was scared. He didn’t say it then, and he didn’t testify to it in court.”

Eldridge also noted that Potter put other people at risk when she fired her gun, highlighting that the third officer was so close to the shooting that a cartridge casing bounced off his face.

“Members of the jury, safe handling of a firearm does not include firing it into a car with four people directly in harm’s way,” she said.

Gray started his closing argument by attacking Eldridge's summation, highlighting how she had played slowed-down depictions of events that Potter saw in real time.

“Playing the video not at the right speed where it showed chaos, playing it as slow as possible … that’s the rabbit hole of misdirection,” Gray said. He also noted that Potter's body camera was mounted on her chest and gave a slightly different perspective than her own vision.

Judge Chu told jurors that intent is not part of the charges and that the state doesn’t have to prove she tried to kill Wright.

The judge said for first-degree manslaughter, prosecutors must prove that Potter caused Wright’s death while committing the crime of reckless handling of a firearm. This means they must prove that she committed a conscious or intentional act while handling or using a firearm that creates a substantial or unjustifiable risk that she was aware of and disregarded, and that she endangered safety.

For second-degree manslaughter, prosecutors must prove she acted with culpable negligence, meaning she consciously took a chance of causing death or great bodily harm.
 
Jury at Kimberly Potter trial quietly wraps up third day of deliberations

The Associated Press and Nina Moini
Minneapolis
December 22, 2021 6:01 a.m.

www.mprnews.org

Jury at Kimberly Potter trial quietly wraps up third day of deliberations

Jurors in the manslaughter trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Brooklyn Center officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright in April, have concluded deliberations for the day. The jury asked Judge Regina Chu late Tuesday afternoon what to do if members can't agree on a verdict. She told them to...
www.mprnews.org www.mprnews.org

Jurors in the trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Brooklyn Center officer who shot and killed Black motorist Daunte Wright, spent a third day deliberating Wednesday, after a question to the judge suggested some are concerned they may not be able to reach agreement.

The jury asked Judge Regina Chu on Tuesday afternoon how to proceed if they can't reach a verdict. The question came after roughly 12 hours of deliberations that began Monday, and the judge told jurors to continue their work.

Deliberations resumed shortly before 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. The jury didn’t asked any other questions before they ended deliberations for the day Wednesday evening.

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I decided to look up the specific charges:



Here are the charges:

COUNT I

First-degree manslaughter
One of the ways Minnesota law defines first-degree manslaughter is causing someone’s death while committing or attempting to commit a lesser crime — a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor — in a way that a reasonable person could foresee would cause death or great bodily harm.

Specifically, prosecutors accuse Ms. Potter of causing Mr. Wright’s death through reckless handling or use of a firearm.

First-degree manslaughter is a felony, punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $30,000. The standard sentence for someone without a criminal record, like Ms. Potter, would be about seven years.



COUNT II
Second-degree manslaughter
One of the ways Minnesota law defines second-degree manslaughter is causing someone’s death through culpable negligence, by creating an unreasonable risk and consciously taking chances of causing death or great bodily harm.

Prosecutors accuse Ms. Potter of doing so while using a firearm.
Second-degree manslaughter is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $20,000. The standard sentence for a person without any previous convictions would be about four years.



At the very least it should be second-degree manslaughter, I’m not sure what taking the jury so long? :confused:
 
REDLINE said:
I decided to look up the specific charges:



Here are the charges:

COUNT I

First-degree manslaughter
One of the ways Minnesota law defines first-degree manslaughter is causing someone’s death while committing or attempting to commit a lesser crime — a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor — in a way that a reasonable person could foresee would cause death or great bodily harm.

Specifically, prosecutors accuse Ms. Potter of causing Mr. Wright’s death through reckless handling or use of a firearm.

First-degree manslaughter is a felony, punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $30,000. The standard sentence for someone without a criminal record, like Ms. Potter, would be about seven years.



COUNT II
Second-degree manslaughter
One of the ways Minnesota law defines second-degree manslaughter is causing someone’s death through culpable negligence, by creating an unreasonable risk and consciously taking chances of causing death or great bodily harm.

Prosecutors accuse Ms. Potter of doing so while using a firearm.
Second-degree manslaughter is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $20,000. The standard sentence for a person without any previous convictions would be about four years.



At the very least it should be second-degree manslaughter, I’m not sure what taking the jury so long? :confused:
Click to expand...
In that case, she reaaaally about to..

The jury is looking at 1) had a warrant 2) warrants was a gun issue 3) resisted arrest 4) expired tags 5) reached into his car 6) attempted to flee 7) car could be considered a weapon

He was a goddamn fool.

:smh:
 
bgbtylvr said:
In that case, she reaaaally about to..

The jury is looking at 1) had a warrant 2) warrants was a gun issue 3) resisted arrest 4) expired tags 5) reached into his car 6) attempted to flee 7) car could be considered a weapon

He was a goddamn fool.

:smh:
Click to expand...

He definitely was a fool and he paid the ultimate price for it.

But her negligence caused his death and she’s responsible for that, so with that she should have to face consequences for it.
 
3540327886_logo.jpg

:bravo: The "Rittenhouse" tactic didn't work! :bravo:​
 
lightbright said:
Once you're convicted you get walked away in cuffs.... wtf they talking about, she's not a flight risk....FOH crackers .... if she was black they'd be laffing at the request for her bail to be revoked..... "it's Christmas and she's a devout Catholic"..... they got church in prison ho
:lol: :itsawrap::lol::lol:


.
Click to expand...

Let her observe the holiday in jail!

I mean, it's not like she stormed the Capitol or something...:rolleyes:
 

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