Police Officer Kim Potter sentenced to two years for fatal shooting of Daunte Wright

Former police officer for Brooklyn Center, Minnesota Kim Potter was sentenced on Friday to serve two years in prison and supervised release for fatally shooting Daunte Wright in April of 2021.

Potter’s sentence is set to be composed of 16 months in prison followed by eight months of supervised release after the jury in her case returned a guilty verdict in December.

Potter was found guilty of both first- and second-degree manslaughter. The incident began when 20-year-old Wright was pulled over by officers for driving with an expired tag. The officers proceeded to arrest him after they discovered that there was a warrant out for his arrest. Wright began struggling with officers, and Potter yelled “taser” but pulled out her gun and fired it, killing Wright.

Potter, who has held that she mistakenly withdrew her handgun instead of taser, was captured in body camera footage saying, “I just shot him.”

While on the stand in December, Potter broke down, saying “I’m sorry” as she was questioned about the incident. During the sentencing hearing on Friday, Potter said that her “heart is broken” for the family of Wright and that she prays for them “many times a day.”

But Wright’s mother said on the stand that she would forever be unable to forgive Potter for her actions. “She never once said his name [in the trial]. And for that I’ll never be able to forgive you. And I’ll never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us,” said Katie Wright.

Potter did address Katie in her remarks, saying she did not look at her throughout the course of the trial because he did not believe she had a “right” to after what happened.

Prosecutors had requested that the judge give Potter 86 months, as first-degree manslaughter carries a sentence of 15 years in the state, although judges can lower the sentence if a person has no criminal history, like Potter.

Defendants argued on behalf of Potter in their filing that the sentence should be lower as Potter had no criminal record, in addition to her expressed remorsefulness at the situation.