After three days of deliberation, a jury in a court in Minneapolis (Minnesota) found guilty of manslaughter on Thursday, December 23, an American police officer who had killed an African-American driver during a traffic stop in April.
Kim Potter, 49, has always claimed to have believed she drew her electric Taser gun when she actually pulled out her service weapon and shot Daunte Wright, 20, who was resisting arrest in Brooklyn Center in the upstates. -United.
The former policewoman, who pleaded not guilty, did not react when the verdict was announced. She faces a maximum sentence of twenty-five years in prison and is expected to be determined in February.
“It has become chaos”
“His remorse and regrets for this incident are overwhelming”her lawyer, Paul Engh, said after the verdict, asking the judge to release her on bail. “She is in no way a danger to the public”, he said.
On April 11, the policewoman was on patrol with a colleague who had decided to check the driver of a white Buick who had committed a minor traffic violation. After learning that he was the subject of an arrest warrant, they wanted to arrest him. The policewoman described the situation that day as “Potentially dangerous”. Daunte Wright, who was unarmed, did not allow himself to be handcuffed and restarted his car to flee. Kim Potter then unsheathed his weapon, explaining then having believed to take hold of his electric pistol.
“We were fighting to prevent him from fleeing and then it became chaos. I remember screaming “Taser, Taser, Taser” and nothing happens. And [mon collègue] told me that I had shot him “, she told the bar, before bursting into tears.
Twenty-six years of experience
His lawyer pleaded human error and the effect of stress because he said she was trying to protect his colleague. But for Erin Eldridge, the prosecutor, Daunte Wright died from the reckless handling of a weapon and the negligence of an agent who nevertheless had twenty-six years of experience.
In a statement sent to US media on Thursday, the victim’s family said “Relieved” than “Accounts have been made for this absurd death”. The day of Daunte Wright’s death “Will remain a trauma for his family and a further example for America of why we desperately need to change policing practices”, wrote his relatives.
“Being accountable is not justice”, however qualified at the exit of the hearing the Attorney General of the State of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat. “Justice would be to bring Daunte back to life and make the Wright family whole again. Justice is out of reach ”, he regretted.
The death of the young man had particularly moved the United States because it had intervened in the middle of the trial of the white police officer Derek Chauvin who, in May 2020 in Minneapolis, killed the black forty-something George Floyd. Rallies marked by violence had taken place several nights in a row in Brooklyn Center, before the arrest of Kim Potter calmed down.
