“
In the chaotic few seconds that followed, Potter drew her handgun and shouted “I’ll tase you!” and “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before shooting a single bullet into Wright’s chest, killing him. Immediately afterward, she appeared shocked and said that she had “grabbed the wrong f***ing gun.”In the trial, last December, lawyers for both sides agreed that she had intended to draw her Taser, not her handgun.
“The jury found the defendant guilty of this crime,” Frank said. “It wasn’t an intent to kill Mr. Wright. But it was culpably negligent. It represents a higher state of culpability.”
A departure from the state’s sentencing guidelines must be reserved for rare and compelling cases, he said.
“We don’t doubt that Ms. Potter has remorse. But … this is a courtroom full of pain and anger. How do we fix that? What can we do? This is a divided community,” Frank said, his voice wavering with emotion. “What can be done to help restore some of the faith and trust between law enforcement and the community? In particular, in this case, what can be done to help the Wright family through their pain and their loss?”
He argued that defendants should be expected to show remorse, but that remorse is not enough: “We should expect defendants to have remorse for more than what has happened to them. We should expect defendants to have remorse in the sense of a feeling of wrongfulness to others. We have seen some evidence of that, but I submit not enough.”
Daunte Wright’s family spoke to the court about their painful loss.
Katie Wright, his mother, spoke with hurt and anger. “You took his future, what he could have been and it was so many things,” she said, brushing away tears.
She said she would only call Potter “the defendant,” after Potter repeatedly called her son “the driver” during the trial, rather than speaking his name.
“April 11 was the worst day of my life,” she said. “A police officer who’s supposed to serve and protect someone took so much away from us. She took our baby boy with a single gunshot through his heart, and she shattered mine. My life and my world will never ever be the same.”
Arbuey Wright, Daunte’s father, described how the family has been riven by sadness since Daunte’s killing. “Everything we do as a family ends in tears because all we have is memories left of our son,” he said.
“Kim Potter was trained to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening. She was a police officer longer than my son was alive,” he said. “I ask that Kim Potter be held accountable and that the maximum sentence be applied, which is incomparable to the life sentence we have been given because of her negligence. My son Daunte’s life was taken away way too soon, and he’s never coming back.”
Kim Potter apologizes to Wright’s family and to the community
After her defense attorney read letters in support of Potter, Potter herself took the stand to express remorse. She turned to face the Wright family and spoke through tears.
“I’m so sorry that I brought the death of your son, father, brother, uncle, grandson, nephew, and the rest of your family,” she said. “Katie, I understand a mother’s love and I am sorry I broke your heart. My heart is broken for all of you. Earlier when you said that I didn’t look at you during the trial, I don’t believe I had a right to. I don’t even have a right to be in the same room with you.”
“I am so sorry that I hurt you so badly. My heart is broken, devastated for all of you. I pray for Daunte and all of you many, many times a day. He is not more than one thought away from my heart and I have no right for that, for him to be in my heart. I do pray that one day you can find forgiveness only because hatred is so destructive to all of us. And that I pray peace will always be with all of you and your family,” Potter said.
“And to the community of Brooklyn Center, I do owe you an apology, too. I loved working for you. And I am sorry what has happened to our community since the death of Daunte. And the men and women who work for you still are good, honorable people and will work hard for you.”
Defense lawyers reference Rodney King in arguing for a lighter sentence
In a pair of court filings last month, Potter’s lawyers cited her “age, her exemplary career [and] her crime-free life” as reasons she should receive leniency.
Potter is at no risk of recidivism, her lawyers said, writing that she “expressed remorse and apologized to Mr. Wright’s family from the stand, and will again at sentencing.” Potter would be a “walking target” in prison, they wrote. And a prison sentence for her could exacerbate staffing issues at the Minneapolis Police Department by discouraging potential applicants, they suggested.
In arguing for a lesser prison sentence, Potter’s lawyers claimed that Wright’s behavior had essentially provoked Potter into committing manslaughter. At the time of the traffic stop, Wright had a warrant for his arrest on a gun-related charge, and he was trying to escape arrest when Potter shot him.
“Without Mr. Wright’s violent and aggressive resistance [sic], nothing would have happened. All Mr. Wright had to do was stop, obey lawful commands, and he’d be alive,” her lawyers wrote.
Potter’s lawyers cited a series of cases in which judges had reached similar conclusions and levied lighter sentences — including that of Rodney King, the Black man beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991.
In that case, two officers who had been previously acquitted of state charges were later found guilty by a different jury in a federal civil rights trial.
During the sentencing hearing, the judge cited King’s alcohol consumption and “combative” behavior alongside the officers’ careers and family lives. He then sentenced the officers to 30 months in prison, far less than what prosecutors had urged. The controversial sentence was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Potter’s prosecutors called the reference to the King beating a matter of “poor taste and judgment,” and they disputed that Wright had behaved combatively or aggressively. “He simply tried to get in the driver’s seat and drive off,” they wrote.
Protests over Daunte Wright’s death lasted for days after he was fatally shot by then-Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter.Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images