A prosecutor on Monday urged jurors to hold a former Minnesota police officer criminally responsible for a “colossal screw up, a blunder of epic proportions” that ended in the fatal shooting of a Black motorist.
Assistant Attorney General Erin Eldridge said defendant Kim Potter improperly disregarded a series of risks when she shot and killed Daunte Wright earlier this year.
Potter has said she accidentally pulled a Glock when she was trying to deploy a Taser to subdue Wright, fleeing from arrest on a misdemeanor weapons warrant.
But Eldridge insisted that Potter shouldn’t have even used a Taser on Wright, who was mortally wounded and drove a short distance before slamming into another car seconds later.
“It goes to show that she made a series of bad choices that led to her shooting and killing Daunte Wright. It goes to her disregard of all the risks,” Eldridge told a Minneapolis jury.
“Members of the jury, this was no little ‘oopsies.’ This was not putting the wrong date on a check. This was not entering the wrong password somewhere. This was a colossal screw up, a blunder of epic proportions. It was precisely the thing she had been warned about for years and she was trained to prevent it. It was irreversible and it was fatal.”
Eldridge played Potter’s body-camera video in slow motion for jurors, saying it showed that the defendant likely saw her weapon before firing it.
“She took specific actions that put Daunte Wright and everyone else around him at risk,” the prosecutor said. “An ordinary and prudent person would not have drawn a weapon, held it for more than five … six seconds, aimed it and pulled the trigger, all without recognizing or confirming what was in their hand.”
Potter has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges in the death of Wright, killed in a confrontation that unfolded in Brooklyn Center, about 10 miles away from the courthouse where former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was on trial for the slaying of George Floyd.
Days later, Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of second- and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter, in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd, a Black man, whose death touched off a summer of national protests calling for an end to institutional racism.
Potter’s trial is being held in the same 18th floor courtroom where Chauvin was tried and convicted. The former officer has pleaded not guilty, claiming Wright’s killing was a tragic accident.
Wright was pulled over due to an air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror, prosecutors said. A short time later, officers tried to arrest Wright on an outstanding warrant and a struggle ensued. Body camera video showed Potter repeatedly yelling “Taser!”
“Members of the jury, the defendant told you her sons will be home for the holidays. You know who won’t be home for the holidays is Daunte Wright,” Eldridge said. “Daunte Wright’s parents, Katie and Aubrey Wright, will have an empty seat at their table this holiday season because the defendant shot and killed him on April 11 of this year.”
The prosecutor added: “At the heart of it, this case is very simple, members of the jury. It’s a case about the defendant’s reckless handling of her firearm and it’s about her culpable negligence.”
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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
