The former suburban Minneapolis cop — who says she mistook her Taser for a gun when she shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop — is about to go on trial.
Kimberly Potter, 49, was in court in Hennepin County, Minnesota, as the jury was being selected on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. Her defense is that she believed she was grabbing her stun gun when she pointed her handgun and fired one shot into the chest cavity of Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
The police chief shared the body-cam with the media and public less than 24 hours after the shooting. In the clip, Potter can be heard shouting “Taser” repeatedly before she shoots the 20-year-old Wright. After she discharged her weapon, she blurts out, “Holy s—! I just shot him!”
What amplifies this case is the fact that the killing took place just a few miles from where George Floyd was executed under the crushing knee of former cop Derek Chauvin on Memorial Day 2020.
Video also played a pivotal role in Chauvin being found guilty of both first-degree murder and third-degree manslaughter.
Defense attorney Paul Engh told a prospective juror that Potter will testify on her own behalf as she faces a decade in prison on first- and second-degree manslaughter charges.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Dec. 8, 2021.
Gerald Takano, a certified use of force and training expert, told CNN that Potter committed “catastrophic” errors in judgement.
“It was catastrophic in a couple ways,” he said. “Weapons confusion is a single catastrophic incident. The accumulation of small errors is catastrophic in totality. Both occurred in the same instance.”
