Kim Potter (1972- ) is the White American police officer who killed Daunte Wright, an unarmed Black man, during a Routine Traffic Stop on April 11th 2021. That was in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota – just miles away from where Derek Chauvin was standing trial for the murder of George Floyd! And just miles away from where Philando Castile was also killed during a Routine Traffic Stop.
Potter is now on trial for manslaughter – for whether her negligence or recklessness led to Daunte Wright’s death. Despite her 26 years of experience, she says she mixed up her Taser with her handgun. She is a good person! And a mistake is not a crime. And blah blah blah blah blah!
The jury, after three days of deliberations, seems to be badly split. It is made up of 6 White men, 3 White women, 2 Asian women and 1 Black woman. Potter took the witness stand, crying White women tears. If she walks free, that will almost certainly be why.
On April 11th 2021, the department told officers to avoid making unnecessary arrests because of the heightened tensions caused by Derek Chauvin trial. The governor had already called out the National Guard (state militia) fearing the streets could turn violent. Despite that, Potter apparently wanted to show her trainee, Anthony Luckey, how to escalate a Routine Traffic Stop into a life-or-death situation in less than a minute.
Routine Traffic Stop: They stopped Wright for “air fresheners hanging from his rear-view mirror” – aka DWB: Driving While Black. They found out he had a warrant for his arrest for missing a court date for a misdemeanour weapons charge from a year ago. But then he was resisting arrest! She was afraid he had a gun.
Potter:
“[Officer Mychal Johnson] had a look of fear on his face. It’s something I’ve never seen before. It just went chaotic.”
Wright was trying to drive away!
Police are not supposed to shoot on fleeing suspects. Even the US Supreme Court can see what is wrong with that – or could in Tennessee v Garner (1985). And you are not supposed to use a Taser (stun gun) on anyone trying to drive a car since it temporarily paralyses them.
Despite all that, she shouts:
“Taser, Taser, Taser!”
She shoots and nothing happens. Then: “Holy shit, I shot him.” With her handgun. Right through the heart.
Instead of trying to save his life, she breaks down in tears saying she was afraid she was “going to go to prison”. She resigned two days later.
Police Tim Gannon testified that he saw “no violation” of “policy, procedure and law”.
Taser and handgun – spot the difference!
Tasers: The use-of-force instructor said that no one in his 16 years with the police department had ever mixed up a Taser with a handgun. Tasers are much lighter, have a different grip, are brightly coloured, are drawn from the opposite side of the body, and so on. Potter had been trained on their use every year since 2002.
Race did not come up during the trial. But her disproportionate use of force (or panic) was almost certainly because Wright was a Black man, which White people in the US have an overblown fear of.
– Abagond, 2021.
Update (21:47 GMT): Kim Potter has been found guilty of manslaughter! The jury did not hang!
See also:
- killer cops
- Daunte Wright
- George Floyd
- Philando Castile
- racial trope Bingo card:
- Us and Them
537
Abagond 
Typical white woman response on the white supremacy police force. The power of WWT may win her freedom for sure. Duante Wright should be alive today.
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Both sides of the legality of whether or not deadly force was legally permissible under the circumstances are being argued and often what is legally true and ethically just are at odds. But, in my mind (just an opinion of course) one thing is true:
Daunte Wright would not have been pulled over for his air fresheners and they wouldn’t have wound up in a position of needing to arrest him were it not for racism. She would not have responded to his actions so fearfully and would not have shot him were it not for her implicit bias. He would likely be alive today to possibly face judgement for his previous crime.
That said, had she not shot him and he had been permitted to flee, leading to a pursuit… it may not have been her that killed him that day, but the odds are pretty high that some officer would have. Maybe by standing on the hood and shooting through the window or shooting at the vehicle as it drove away or… well, you know.
It just blows my mind that officers aren’t trained, in depth, about what’s going on inside the heads of Black folks, particularly young Black males, when a cop is driving behind them, much less pulling them over. The neuroscience is clear. The need for officers to keep their own sympathetic response in check in order to mediate their suspect’s response is paramount to deescalation and ensuring that everyone reacts “rationally” during their interaction. Maybe they do that with white folks but then many white folks don’t have the same fears and fight-or-flight survival response when interacting with the police because they’re confident they’ll survive the encounter. Plus, the officers likely feel “safer” stopping white folks because of racism. Sure, the white guy may be a serial killer, a future mass shooter, or some kind of armed anti-government “patriot” but, racism renders all that moot.
Sorry, that went longer than intended. I came to express the unpopular opinion that I believe she subconsciously drew her weapon out of her own fight-or-flight response rooted in racism but, I believe she didn’t consciously intend to kill him. Basically, a mistake rooted in her racist amygdala. The legality of which is murky and I don’t envy the jury needing to weigh laws and policy against the ethics of killing a young man over air fresheners. I hate that he is dead and I would like to see her punished. Both for what she did and also as motivation to make progress on preventing repeats. If nothing else, each guilty verdict leads to an exodus of “bad apples” who fear prison more than unemployment.
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They just found her guilty! A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
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“I came to express the unpopular opinion that I believe she subconsciously drew her weapon out of her own fight-or-flight response rooted in racism but, I believe she didn’t consciously intend to kill him.”
I agree. I don’t believe she did it on purpose, simply because it was not in her best interest to do so. If it was on purpose she was somewhere between an idiot and a criminal mastermind. An idiot to do it so publicly, a mastermind to suddenly go into a panic attack and claim she thought it was her taser.
But she created the situation by pulling him over for no reason, and then escalated the situation by trying to tase him when it was totally uncalled for.
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That’s Guilty! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!
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Update: Kim Potter has been found guilty of manslaughter! The jury did not hang!
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