Kim Potter testifies she was "very distraught" after shooting Daunte Wright: "I didn't want to hurt anybody"
Former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter took the stand on Friday in her trial over the killing of Daunte Wright. Potter shot Wright in April in a Minneapolis suburb after he pulled away from officers who were seeking to arrest him.
Video of the incident recorded her shouting "I'll tase you!" and "Taser, Taser, Taser!" before she fired once.
Potter said Friday while testifying she was not formally trained on what weapon confusion was. "It would be mentioned in training but is not something that we would be physically trained on," she said.
She said field officer Anthony Luckey — a trainee working alongside her at the time — noticed a pine tree air freshener hanging from the driver's rearview mirror and that his tags were expired. Potter testified that Luckey wanted to stop the vehicle, but that if she had not been with Luckey on that day she would "most likely not" have stopped Wright's vehicle.
"An air freshener to me is just an equipment violation," she said.
Upon pulling the vehicle over, sergeant Mychal Johnson arrived for assistance. Officers took the driver's information and found he had a suspended driver's license, gross misdemeanor, bench warrant for weapons and a protection order.
"The plan was for officer Luckey to get the driver into custody for the warrant and we'd further investigate," Potter said.
She said she heard officer Luckey ask the driver to step out of the vehicle to which the driver finally did. Potter said she believes Johnson told the driver first that he was under arrest and she remembers officer Luckey telling the driver he was under arrest, too. Potter then alerted the driver that he had a warrant.
She said officer Luckey put the driver's hands behind his back when she noticed he was holding something. Potter then removed the item from the driver's hand.
"Officer Luckey started to say something about 'don't do that, don't tense up, stop doing that,'" she recalled. "And then, it just went completely chaotic. I remember struggle with officer Luckey at the door. The driver was trying to get back into the car."
She said Johnson, who she had known for years prior, "had a look of fear on his face." "It's nothing that I had seen before," Potter said tearfully.
"We were struggling," she said. "We were trying to keep him from driving away. It just went chaotic and then I remember yelling 'taser, taser, taser,' and nothing happened. And then he told me that I shot him."
She said she remembers an ambulance before being at the police station.
"I'm sorry it happened," Potter said. "I'm so sorry."
She told prosecutors that she did not plan to use deadly force that day, did not make sure any other officers knew what she had done and did not check on the other car that the driver hit.
"I was very distraught. I had just shot somebody and I had never done that," she said. "I didn't want to hurt anybody."
Wright's death came as another White former officer, Derek Chauvin, was standing trial for the killing of George Floyd.
Late Friday, Wright family attorneys Benjamin Crump, Antonio Romanucci and Jeff Storms released a statement saying his death "was absolutely preventable."
"The argument that she mistook her firearm for her taser is simply beyond comprehension and a damning indictment of both her and the Brooklyn Center Police Department's practices and training protocols," it said.
"While the defense attempted to garner sympathy today through Kim Potter's testimony, we want to stress how misplaced that sympathy would be. As the defense rests and we look ahead to jury deliberations and a verdict, we must not forget that Daunte's parents, his extended family, and his child are facing another holiday without him. And it's because of the reckless and tragic choices made by former officer Potter and the failures of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in the training and development of their police force. We stand with the Wright family as they continue to mourn his loss and anxiously await a conclusion to the trial and hopefully, justice for Daunte."