Police
Former police officer Kim Potter sentenced to 2 years for fatally shooting Daunte Wright
A Minnesota judge on Friday sentenced former police officer Kim Potter to two years for fatally shooting Daunte Wright 10 months ago.
A Minnesota judge on Friday sentenced former police officer Kim Potter to two years for fatally shooting Daunte Wright.
Former police officer Kim Potter sentenced
Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu handed down the sentence for the former Brooklyn Center police officer after emotional courtroom statements from the victim’s loved ones and the defendant herself.
Potter was ordered to serve two-thirds of her sentence in prison, or 16 months, according to state law. With good behavior, she will be eligible for supervised release for the remaining third. She’s already served 58 days behind bars, which will go to her credit.
Judge Chu’s decision
Chu said Potter deserved a lesser sentence than the 86-month sentence prosecutors sought because the officer was trying to use her Taser and not her gun. Prosecutors had requested seven years.
“I find the facts and circumstances here justify a downward departure from the guidelines,” said Chu, adding that said she understood her ruling would be unpopular.
“This is one of the saddest cases that I’ve had in my 20 years on the bench,” Chu said.
Chu noted that despite the “highly unusual” case, accountability must be held.
“Potter is a cop who made a tragic mistake,” the judge added. “She drew her firearm thinking it was a Taser, and ended up killing a young man.”
Impact Statements
Wright’s mother asked the judge to send her son’s killer to prison, telling the convicted former police officer that she’ll “never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us.”
“Daunte Wright is my son, my baby boy and I say ‘is’ and not ‘was’ because he will always be my son and I’m proud to say that,” the victim’s mother, Katie Wright, told the court ahead of sentencing.
“Daute’s smile was genuine and big, just like his dreams. You took them. You took his future.”
Daunte’s father, Arbuey Wright, said his son was his everything and the family’s world has been shattered.
Kim Potter also made an emotional statement saying she was sorry.
“I am so sorry that I brought the death of your son, father, brother, uncle, grandson, nephew, and the rest of your family,” adding, “I’m sorry I broke your heart.”
“I do pray that one day you can find forgiveness,” the former officer said, “only because hatred is so destructive to all of us.”
Kim Potter sentenced: family shocked
The Wright family is shocked by the sentence their attorney Ben Crump said.
“While there is a small sense of justice because she will serve nominal time, the family is also deeply disappointed there was not a greater level of accountability,” their attorney Ben Crump said in a statement. “The Judge’s comments at sentencing showed a clear absence of compassion for the victim in this tragedy and were devastating to the family.”
Potter was convicted of fatally shooting Daunte Wright by a jury of her peers in December 2021.
Wright was stopped for a minor traffic violation. After running his name, police found that he had a warrant for missing court. While Potter and a trainee attempted to arrest Wright, he tried to drive off. Potter, a 26-year veteran of the force, pulled out a gun and fatally shot Wright. Potter maintained that she thought it was a Taser.
Potter resigned from the police department days later.
Police
Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement
The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.
Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement
Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.
The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.
In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
The incident
In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.
Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.
Wrongfully detained
But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.
Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.
And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.
Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.
Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized
Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.
After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.
The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.
Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint
One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.
However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.
To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.
Police
2023 saw a record year of killings by police in U.S.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
2023 police killings increased dramatically
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, dockets deaths at the hands of police officers. Last year, it recorded the highest number of killings since its national tracking began in 2013.
Statistics explained
The data reported that police officers killed 1,329 people in 2023, representing nearly a 19-percent increase over the 11-year span.
Nearly 90% of those killed were fatally shot, according to Abdul Nasser Rad, managing director of research and data at Campaign Zero, who runs Mapping Police Violence.
There were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours, according to the report.
Meanwhile last year, the number of people killed by gunfire and officers killed in the line of duty declined, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. There was an increase in the number of police officers shot.
The newly released data suggests a grim reality and a systemic crisis, with an average of about three people killed by officers each day, with slight increases in recent years. In 2022, 1,250 were killed by police.
The data also reported that Black people were about 2.8 times more likely to be killed by officers than their white counterparts between 2013 and 2023.
Recording police misconduct
For decades, many Americans have suffered various forms of brutality and injustice at the hands of “bad” law enforcement officers.
When a civilian puts in a complaint against the officer only a small percent of complaints result in the officer being disciplined —partly because the accusations are hidden.
Half of the battle is knowing who the “bad” law enforcement are and proper action being taken.
Missin Peace, a national police misconduct database that collects formal civilian complaints against law enforcement, helps fill that void.
In 2022, we had a conversation with the creators, who urged those who filed a complaint against an officer, to upload it on their website as well.
While there is still much work to do, it’s a start.
Police
14-year-old boy with autism tased by police in what family says was case of mistaken identity
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
14-year-old autistic boy tased by police
In an interview with WLS Chicago, the family says that the teen, Avarius Thompson, suffered injuries, including a fractured hip, during an encounter with Dolton police on the morning of Nov.
Police’s incident report
According to the Dolton Police Department’s incident report, Dolton police were assisting police in the nearby neighborhood of Riverdale in the search for four Black males who had fled from a crashed, stolen vehicle, two of whom were allegedly carrying rifles and a handgun.
Dolton officers spotted two subjects, one of whom matched the description of a suspect sought in the incident, in a nearby backyard and pursued them, according to the incident report.
An officer pursuing Avarius ordered the teen to stop before tasing him, according to the incident report.
The incident was captured on the officer’s body-camera footage.
“Hands up! Hands up!” a Dolton police officer can be heard yelling in the body-camera footage as he runs toward Avarius with his Taser extended. After the teen jumps over a fence, the officer deploys the taser, the footage shows.
Avarius attempts to get up when the officer deploys his Taser again a few seconds later, the footage shows.
“Don’t move. Don’t move,” the officer says. “You move, you’re going to get some more.”
Avarius’ father, Eric Thompson, told WLS that the footage was “frightening.”
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