That cop “murdered my son”—and with the sentence the judge handed down on that cop, “the justice system murdered him all over again.” These were the words of Katie Wright, mother of Daunte Wright, when she heard the judge tell the courtroom on February 18 that her son's killer—the cop convicted of two counts of manslaughter—would serve just 14 months in prison and be out by April 2023!
Daunte Wright, an unarmed, 20-year-old Black man, was shot to death at point-blank range by a white suburban Minneapolis cop, Kim Potter, on April 11, 2021, just miles from where the trial of pig Derek Chauvin, George Floyd's murderer, was taking place. Police say they had pulled Daunte over for a “traffic violation.” He tried to get in his car and pull away when they started to arrest him, and Potter pulled out her gun and shot Daunte in the chest, later claiming she thought she had pulled out her Taser.
Daunte's mother told reporters he'd called to tell her he'd been stopped for having an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror.1 She heard noises, and police yelling at Daunte to put down the phone. Then the call ended. When she called him back, Daunte's girlfriend, who'd been in the car with him, answered and said Daunte was dead in the car.
Potter was tried and convicted in December of first- and second-degree manslaughter. The sentence for first-degree manslaughter can range up to 15 years in prison in Minnesota. But under the sentencing guidelines, judges can lower the sentence if a person has no criminal history, to 86 months, or just over seven years in prison. This is the sentence the prosecutors asked the judge to give Potter.
But what the judge did was a travesty2 of justice! She sentenced the killer to just two years in prison, knowing she would only have to serve 16 months before being released on “good behavior” to spend the last eight months free under supervision. Potter has already spent 58 days in jail since her conviction, leaving only 14 more months to go.
Daunte Wright’s family and others in the courtroom were then forced to watch this judge repeatedly fight back tears—at having to sentence a cop at all! She told “those who disagree and feel a longer sentence is appropriate, as difficult as it may be, please try to empathize with Ms. Potter's situation.... Officer Kimberly Potter was trying to do the right thing.... Officer Potter made a mistake that ended tragically, but she never intended to harm anyone.” What?! The cop “never intended to harm anyone” because she shot and killed a young Black man when she was “only” intending to terrorize, brutalize and torture him with a Taser? Even if somehow she did mistake her gun for her Taser, at least 49 people were killed in 2018 after being shocked by police with a Taser.
The judge wasn’t finished with her pro-police poison, saying that “of all the jobs in public service, police officers have the most difficult one. They must make snap decisions, under tense, evolving, and ever-changing circumstances. They risk their lives every single day, in public service.” Here the judge was outrageously broadcasting the standard pig justification for murder after murder—“they feared for their lives.” The judge's conclusion? “Her conduct cries out for a sentence significantly below the guidance.”
Daunte's family and supporters—and people more broadly who learned about it—were outraged and condemned the judge for the lenient sentence and the blatant show of sympathy for Potter. There are many thousands of people in prisons across the U.S., disproportionately Black and other oppressed people, facing years in prison for simply selling marijuana, while this pig gets little more than a year for killing a Black youth!
Before the sentencing, Katie Wright spoke out for her son: “Daunte Demetrius Wright, I will continue to fight in your name until driving while Black is no longer a death sentence.” She joined a group of protesters later that evening outside a downtown building that reportedly included the sentencing judge’s home.
