Kim Potter, former officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright, sentenced to 2 years in prison
CBC
The former suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she confused her handgun for her Taser when she killed Daunte Wright was sentenced Friday to 24 months in prison for manslaughter.
Kim Potter was convicted in December of first- and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11, 2021 killing of Wright, a 20-year-old Black motorist.
For someone with no criminal history, such as Potter, the state guidelines on that charge range from slightly more than six years to about 8 ½ years in prison, with the presumptive sentence being just over seven years.
But in delivering the sentence, Judge Regina Chu said state guidelines were "just that," and said the circumstances of the case made it far from typical.
"This is one of the saddest cases I've had in my 20 years on the bench," said Judge Regina Chu.
Chu said she believed Potter's remorse to be genuine and that her actions were reckless but the result of a "tragic mistake."
In Minnesota, it's presumed that inmates who show good behaviour will serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison and the rest on supervised release, commonly known as parole.
The sentence was delivered after powerful victim impact statements.
Wright's mother, Katie, said she would only refer to Potter as "the defendant" because Potter only referred to her 20-year-old 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," a tearful Wright said.
"A police officer who was supposed to serve and protect so much took so much away from us.… My life and my world will never ever be the same again," she said, adding later: "Daunte Demetrius Wright, I will continue to fight in your name until driving while Black is no longer a death sentence."
Wright was killed after Brooklyn Center officers pulled him over for having expired licence 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's father and siblings earlier addressed the court to speak of their loss.
