Kim Potter, the former Brooklyn Center police officer responsible for the death of 21-year-old Daunte Wright in 2021, was released from prison Monday morning.
Potter was convicted of first and second degree manslaughter in February 2022. She was sentenced to 2 years in custody, with 16 months to be served in prison and the remainder on supervised release.
“She has two sons, that she's going to be able to go home to, she's going top be able to hold them, touch them, hear their voice, and that’s something she took from me” Daunte Wright’s mother Katie Wright said. “No matter how hard I want to believe it was an accident, I can’t in my heart even muster those words to come out of my mouth because of so many opportunities that she had to apologize, to say my son’s name, to save him while he was dying.”
Daunte Wright died on April 11, 2021, during a botched traffic stop. Potter drew her service pistol while yelling “taser, taser, taser.” She then fired her service pistol, shooting Wright once in the chest, killing him.
Potter’s sentence is significantly shorter than the state’s sentencing guidelines, which called for a maximum sentence of 15 years and at minimum 86 months in prison. Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu said that Potter deserved leniency because “she never intended to hurt anyone.”
Wright’s family received a $3.2 million dollar settlement from the city of Brooklyn Center, along with an agreement to provide deescalation training, along with implicit bias and cultural proficiency training by the University of St. Thomas. Katie Wright says that promised changes have yet to happen.