Kim Potter messed up when she pulled her service revolver out of its holster and fired a shot into Daunte Wright, so a jury today ruled in a Minneapolis courtroom.
Potter is a former Minneapolis police officer who stood trial on two manslaughter counts in Wright’s death. The jury convicted her of first- and second-degree manslaughter. It was the correct verdict.
Understand that I was not at the scene when Potter killed Wright. I know what most of us know, which is that Potter said she thought she was reaching for her Taser but pulled out her pistol instead.
Police procedure tells me the Taser and the pistol are stored on opposite sides of the belt that officers wear. The Taser is a brightly colored device designed to stun a suspect … not kill him or her. The pistol is, well, a firearm on which cops are trained to use with proficiency.
I’m still scratching my head over how Potter could mistake one device for the other. Then again, I never have been involved in a life-and-death struggle, so I cannot judge whether Potter was thinking clearly when she shot Daunte Wright to death.
And of course, we have the racial element: Wright was African-American, Potter is white.
Accordingly, Minneapolis — which was torn asunder by the George Floyd murder while he was being arrested by local police — is likely to be spared the uprising one might expect had the jury gone the other way.