A Higher Standard

Brooklyn Center Officer Kimberly Potter

On April 11, 2021, in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, veteran police officer Kimberly Potter and an officer trainee, who was driving, observed a white 2011 Buick LaCrosse driven by 20 year old Daunte Wright signaling a right turn from inside a left turning lane. The trainee officer also noticed that the vehicle had an expired registration tag and an air freshener hanging from the car's rearview mirror, a violation of state law. At 1:53 p.m. local time, the trainee officer initiated a traffic stop of the vehicle on 63rd Avenue North and called for backup.

The car Wright was driving was registered to his brother. Wright did not have a driver's license or proof-of-insurance card. The trainee officer returned to his squad car and was joined by Potter's supervisor, Officer Mychal Johnson, who had arrived at the scene. Meanwhile, Wright phoned his mother. The officers ran Wright's name through a police database and learned that he had an open arrest warrant for failing to appear in court on a gross misdemeanor weapons violation for carrying a gun without a permit, and that there was a protective order against him by an unnamed woman. The officers decided to arrest Wright and ascertain whether the passenger was the same woman who had filed the protective order.

Police body camera footage showed two male officers and one female officer (Potter) approaching the car. The trainee officer approached the driver's side door. The other officer (Potter's supervisor, Mychal Johnson) approached the passenger's side door, while Potter stood back initially.

The trainee officer informed Wright that there was a warrant for his arrest. He opened the driver's side door and Wright stepped out of the car. The car door remained open while Wright put his hands behind his back and the officer attempted to put on handcuffs. After several moments, Potter approached the pair and unsnapped her handgun holster. She grabbed a piece of paper from the arresting officer with her right hand, then moved it to her left hand.

Wright, began to resist arrest, struggled with the officers, broke free, and stepped back into the car. Officer Johnson, on the passenger side, reached inside to grab the gear shift to prevent Wright from driving off. The trainee officer on the driver's side attempted to prevent Wright from obtaining control of the steering wheel.

Officer Potter had her Taser holstered on her left side and her gun on her right, said, "I'll tase you," and then yelled, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" Officer Johnson, on the passenger's side, released his attempt to restrain Wright. Officer Potter then discharged her firearm, a single time, instead of her taser, using her right hand, and subsequently screamed, "Oh shit, I just shot him!"

Wright drove off after being shot. The vehicle traveled for about 470 feet until it collided with another vehicle near the intersection of 63rd Avenue North and Kathrene Drive. Officers administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but Wright was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:18 p.m. Wright's girlfriend, the female passenger in the vehicle, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. No one in the other vehicle was injured.

On April 14, Potter was charged by the Washington County Attorney's Office with second-degree manslaughter, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 609.205, a felony offense entailing "culpable negligence creating unreasonable risk" that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years incarceration and/or a $20,000 fine. The criminal complaint against her states that she caused Wright's death "by her culpable negligence," whereby she "created an unreasonable risk and consciously took a chance of causing death or great bodily harm" to Wright.

On September 2, 2021, prosecutors added the charge of first-degree manslaughter, predicated on reckless use/handling of a firearm, a more serious charge than second-degree manslaughter and carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. Trial proceedings were held in Minneapolis at a Hennepin County Government Center courtroom beginning on November 30, 2021, with Minnesota District Court Judge Regina M. Chu presiding.

Expert witnesses for the defense testified that Potter had the legal authority to fire either a gun or taser. Potter testified in her defense, claiming that she mistook her gun for a Taser and admitting to fatally shooting Wright.

After deliberating for 27 hours over four days, the jury found Potter guilty of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter on December 23, 2021. Judge Chu ordered that Potter be immediately remanded into custody and held without bail after the verdict. She was taken to Shakopee Women's Correctional Facility to await sentencing.

On February 18, 2022, Judge Chu sentenced Potter to two years in prison and eight months of supervised release, saying it was "one of the saddest cases I've had on my 20 years on the bench." Minnesota law allows release for good behavior after two-thirds of the sentence is served.

The shooting sparked protests in Brooklyn Center and renewed ongoing demonstrations against alleged police brutality in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area, leading to citywide and regional curfews. Demonstrations also spread to cities across the United States. Daunte Demetrius Wright was a 20-year-old who had dropped out of high school about two years earlier, allegedly due to an unspecified learning disability. He had been working in retail and fast-food jobs to support his almost-two-year-old illegitimate son. At the time of the shooting, he had an open warrant for his arrest related to an aggravated armed robbery, failure to appear in court, and for charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during a previous encounter with Minneapolis police in June. He also had a restraining order against him that forbade contact with a woman. His girlfriend, who was sitting in the passenger's seat of the vehicle, and was injured in the crash, was not the woman who had filed the restraining order or the mother of Wright's young son.

Wright family attorney and well-known racist Benjamin Crump stated in a public broadcast that arresting officers could have just given tickets but instead "use the most force when it comes to dealing with marginalized minorities." He did not speculate about how it would have been possible for officers to have given Wright a ticket while he was resisting arrest, or that a ticket was appropriate for someone with existing arrest warrants for aggravated armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm, or fleeing from the law!

As far as I can see, the conviction and sentencing of Officer Potter was a gross miscarriage of justice. From all indications, she never, at any time, attempted to use deadly force against Wright. Her use of her service pistol instead of her taser was an unfortunate, but understandable, mistake, made during the confusion caused by Wright's attempted escape. Given his reckless right turn, the lack of a driver's license or insurance card, the expired registration tag, the illegal air freshener, the restraining order against him, his previous possession of a gun without a permit, his previous flight from officers, his open warrants for armed robbery and failure to appear, he gave every indication of being, at best, totally contemptuous of the law, and at worst a deadly menace to the public! The only good things that I can think of that can be said of him is that he won't be jeopardizing the lives of legal drivers or molesting women or robbing somebody at gunpoint or running from the police or fathering any more illigitimate children. No doubt his momma, the Minnesota protesters and Benjamin Crump have opposing viewpoints.

Provisions of the law notwithstanding, Officer Potter was denied her constitutional right to be tried by a jury of her peers, namely, other police officers. The jury was composed of nine white jurors, one black and two Asian, evenly split between men and women. However, none of them were police officers, or apparently any more familiar with the difficulty of apprehending uncooperative lawbreakers than the average person. In the military, whose members face similar occupational stresses, members of the jury are at least other military members, and enlisted defendants can require enlisted jury members.

Had I been on that jury, we would have either found her not guilty of all charges, or caused a deadlocked mistrial. I am frankly furious that she was even indicted, let alone tried, let alone convicted! Unfortunately, nothing I can do can change or alleviate the situation!

While watching news reports about this on TV, I noted that a number of times the remark was made that "Police officers should be held to a higher standard!" I have to ask, "Why?"

Why should a police officer be held to a higher standard than an unlicensed driver irresponsibly operating a one and a half ton automobile on a city street? We surely don't pay them to a higher standard! Police officers are superbly trained drivers and marksmen. They wear distinctive uniforms and badges and drive clearly marked police cars so everyone knows who and where they are and that they are armed with deadly weapons they have the right to employ to deter lawbreakers from breaking the laws. They use lights and sirens to warn the public of extraordinary hazards. When on duty, other people are protected against mishap by the employer's insurance. An unlicensed, uninsured, irresponsible driver, possibly armed with an illegal weapon, on the run from the law, is none of these things, Like Daunte Wright, he a disaster going somewhere to happen! Society is surely well rid of those.

Officer Potter, a mother of two, has already achieved a higher standard than the ordinary citizen! She protected and served her community for twenty six years, all her adult life, on the Brooklyn Center police force. That was after she graduated from high school and college so she could get a good job and support her family. She was subsequently sold out and betrayed by the very people for whom she had repeatedly risked her life in their service. She is now in prison among the most dangerous female convicts in the state of Minnesota who hate police. "Justice," this is not!

Minnesota governor Tim Walz was an Army sergeant major. He probably knows more than the average citizen about what accidents can happen when trying to subdue an unruly miscreant. I hope he can do what's necessary to right this grievous wrong!

I think criminals should be held to a higher standard! We pay their salaries, too, in the form of providing for them in jail, giving them free legal counsel, and not extracting taxes from them for the police, fire and public health services they receive, same as law-abiding citizens. If someone is driving without a license or insurance, he'd do well to be extra careful not to attract the attention of the police, especially if the vehicle license has expired. It would probably be best if that person didn't drive at all. If the police are looking for him anyway, he would be well advised to stay home and otherwise keep a very low profile. If he carries around an illegal weapon, he'd best keep it secret. If a woman has a protective order in force against him, he would be well advised to stay away from strange women! If he's going to have sex with a teenage girl, he ought for God's sake to wear a condom so he doesn't accidentally produce a child that an unskilled high school dropout is unlikely to be able to support. And if he should manage to get himself noticed by the police, he ought to try real hard to make them think that he really is an upstanding citizen, so they don't get suspicious and run his name through their data files!

And if all else fails. for example if a person sleeps with a gun in his hand and all at once people in police uniforms are yelling and pointing guns at him, he would do well to drop the gun and show them his empty hands! The human race doesn't need people who do something that is likely to get them killed in such a situation; we have far too many of those already! That is especially true if they think they're "those most at risk" anyway! Demanding one's rights, pointing anything at anybody, or otherwise screwing around with people who have guns and are obviously ready to shoot somebody is never a good idea, regardless of what color one happens to be or whether they're actually violating his rights. Nobody gets to to sue anybody for civil rights violation if he's dead!

I have long advocated holding public safety personnel harmless for injury to persons suspected of being engaged in the commission of a crime with a deadly weapon. Given the number of people killed by automobiles every year, I think an automobile driven recklessly by someone without a driver's license counts as a deadly weapon! If he gets killed trying to resist arrest for doing that, I don't have a problem with it. I consider it evolution in action!

The Bible (Romans 12:21) says "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Confucius said "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." Taken together, I think that means that those of us who are dismayed when injustice is done should do something good to oppose it, however inadequate it might be.

The only thing I can think of to do at the moment is to give good advice to those who need it. This is mine!

John Lindorfer