Officer charged with 2nd-degree manslaughter over killing of Daunte Wright
The former police officer who killed Daunte Wright, a black young man, during a traffic stop in Minnesota has been charged with second-degree manslaughter.
According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Kim Potter, a former officer of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, has been arrested at about 11:30 a.m. local time and will be sent into the Hennepin County Jail.
Daunte Wright, 20, was shot and killed by Potter during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, 14 miles north of where George Floyd was killed last year, on Sunday.
A body camera video released by the police on Monday shows while the officer attempted to take Wright into custody, he attempted to re-enter his car.
The officer panics and shouts "Taser! Taser! Taser!" but then instead pulls out a gun and fires a single shot into him. Wright drives off for a short distance, later crashing and dying from the gunshot wound.
Following the incident, Potter and the Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon submitted their resignations on Tuesday, which have not been accepted so far.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Crump, Jeff Storms and Anthony Romanucci, the attorneys of the Wright family, described the decision to charge the officer as a single step in the right direction.
"While we appreciate that the district attorney is pursuing justice for Daunte, no conviction can give the Wright family their loved one back," they said in a statement. "This was no accident. This was an intentional, deliberate, and unlawful use of force."
"A 26-year veteran of the force knows the difference between a taser and a firearm. Kim Potter executed Daunte for what amounts to no more than a minor traffic infraction and a misdemeanor warrant," they said. "It’s past time for meaningful change in our country."
The killing of Daunte Wright, which has triggered a wave of protests in Minneapolis, is at least the third high-profile death of a Black man during a police encounter in the city over the past five years.
Previously, Philando Castile was shot dead during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights in 2016.
George Floyd, another Black man, also died last May after Derek Chauvin, a white officer, knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for nine minutes.
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