During his opening remarks at Potter’s manslaughter trial, the prosecution showed video of the deadly April encounter.
Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images
In the trial for the case of Daunte Wright manslaughter, the jury saw a never-before-seen video of the shooting showing the Former Accused Police Officer Kimberly Potter Screaming “i grabbed the wrong gun”.
During his opening remarks at Potter’s involuntary manslaughter trial, the prosecution showed video of the deadly April encounter showing Potter firing his gun instead of his taser pistol.
“M… I just shot him,” Minnesota officer Potter is heard saying in front of the camera. “I got the wrong damn gun. I shot him “.
Potter, a former Brooklyn Center cop is then seen in a video, clutching his head and collapsing to the ground.
Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Erin Eldridge told jurors that officers take an oath “to protect life, not to take it away.”
“There is no going back when you take the life of a young man,” Eldridge said.
“We trust them to distinguish evil from right and left from right,” Eldridge said, referring to officers holding tasers and pistols on opposite sides of their bodies.
Potter’s attorney, Paul Engh, said the shooting would never have occurred if Wright had complied with officers’ orders.
All Wright “had to do was give up,” Engh said. “All you have to do is stop and you would be here with us.”
Engh argued that Potter was attempting to use his Taser on Wright to protect his partner, Sergeant Mychal Johnson, who was in Wright’s car and would have been injured if Wright had left.
“She realizes what has happened largely to her eternal and endless regret,” Engh said of Potter’s reactions after the shooting.
“She made a mistake. This was an accident. She is a human being, but she also had to do what she had to do to avoid the death of a partner. “
Engh added that Potter had “a good name that has been tainted by this accusation, which is not true, and by the press coverage, which has been skewed. We seek to claim it and we will claim it ”.
The trial takes place in the same courtroom where another former police officer was convicted of murder for the death of George Floyd.
Potter faces charges of manslaughter in the first and second degree.
Potter was arrested and released the same day as her arrest after posting a $ 100,000 bond.
The maximum sentence for a second-degree murder charge is a 10-year jail sentence and a $ 20,000 fine, according to Minnesota statutes.
The former cop joined the Minnesota police force in 1995, at the age of 22.
Wright was shot just ten miles from where Floyd was killed last summer, sparking a torrent of anger in the community.
Wright was pulled over for a traffic violation shortly before 2 pm on April 11 by Brooklyn Center police officers.
Police said that when they tried to arrest the driver, who they discovered had a warrant pending, he returned to his vehicle.
Body camera footage from the fatal shooting reveals the moment when Potter accidentally shot Wright, while attempting to use a Taser.
“An officer fired his firearm and injured the driver,” police said. “The vehicle traveled several blocks before colliding with another vehicle.”
Police said the officer who fired the fatal shot intended to use a taser pistol, not a pistol.
Police Chief Tim Gannon described the shooting as an “accidental discharge.”