‘This Was No Accident’: Daunte Wright Family’s Attorney Releases Statement Following Arrest of Officer Kim Potter
Kimberly Potter, the white police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop Sunday, was arrested by state investigators late Wednesday morning.
According to a press statement from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, BCA agents took Potter into custody around 11:30 a.m. at the agency’s St. Paul, Minnesota, office. She will be booked into the Hennepin County Jail and charged with second-degree manslaughter.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput confirmed the news to The New York Times on Wednesday, saying he plans to formally file the complaint later today. According to TV station KSTP 5, Orput met with Wright’s family and their attorneys Tuesday night and told them of the coming development.
Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer that the family has retained, issued a statement on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
“While we appreciate that the district attorney is pursuing justice for Daunte, no conviction can give the Wright family their loved one back,” he said. “This was no accident. This was an intentional, deliberate, and unlawful use of force. Driving while Black continues to result in a death sentence. A 26-year veteran of the force knows the difference between a taser and a firearm.”
Potter had been a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, for 26 years and was training a new recruit Sunday afternoon when she shot Wright, a 20-year-old Black man. Authorities claim she accidentally shot the man when she mistook her service weapon for her stun gun.
The announcement culminates a tumultuous week of swift and sweeping changes in the department and a city under crisis. It comes after protesters in counties throughout the Twin Cities took to streets to protest Wright’s death for three consecutive nights.
Potter, 48, resigned from her job Tuesday, and former Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon also stepped down. On Monday, Brooklyn Center City Council members terminated City Manager Curt Boganey, who’d been the chief of staff since 2005.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced in a statement Monday that his office was passing the case to the Washington County Attorney to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. It’s part of a practice that five Twin Cities counties adopted last year in use-of-deadly force cases involving law enforcement.
That left it up to Orput to determine what, if any, charges Potter should face. BCA is also conducting an investigation into Wright’s killing.
Wright was killed in the Minneapolis suburb about 10 miles northwest of George Floyd’s fatal encounter with former police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes as he and three officers detained him during an arrest.
News of Potter’s arrest came one day after Crump was flanked by members of Wright and Floyd’s families during a press conference he staged outside the Hennepin County Courthouse where Chauvin is now being tried for second- and third-degree murder. During the gathering Tuesday, Wright’s family members demanded justice in connection with his death.
“It hurt me to my heart. Daunte was a beautiful child,” his grandmother, Angie Golson, said as she broke down and wept. “He might not have been an angel, but he was our angel. He belonged to us…and he’s going to be missed.”
Crump described the shooting as a execution and called for “meaningful policing and justice reform” in his statement Wednesday.
“Daunte’s life, like George Floyd’s life, like Eric Garner’s, like Breonna Taylor’s, like David Smith’s, meant something,” he said. “But Kim Potter saw him as expendable. It’s past time for meaningful change in our country.”
Wright’s shooting shares similarities with Oscar Grant’s death early the morning of New Year’s Day 2009. Grant was 22 when BART officer Johannes Sebastian Mehserle shot him during a scuffle on a subway platform in Oakland, California. Like Potter, Mehserle claimed he mistook his service weapon for his stun gun.
The transit officer was charged with second-degree murder, but a jury acquitted him of that charge and he was instead convicted of involuntary manslaughter. A judge sentenced Mehserle to two years behind bars and he was released on parole in June 2011 after serving only 11 months in jail.
This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.