Police had reason to believe Daunte Wright might have a gun when they tried to arrest him last spring, a lawyer told jurors Wednesday at the trial of the suburban Minneapolis officer who killed Wright after shooting him with her gun instead of her Taser.
During his opening statement in former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter's manslaughter trial, defence lawyer Paul Engh said Potter made a mistake when she grabbed the wrong weapon and shot Wright after he tried to drive away from a traffic stop while she and other officers were trying to arrest him.
He said Potter "had to do what she had to do to prevent a death to a fellow officer" who had reached inside Wright's car and risked being dragged if Wright drove away.
Potter, 49, is charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in Wright's April 11 death in Brooklyn Center. The white former officer, who resigned two days after the shooting, has said she meant to use her Taser on the 20-year-old Wright, who was Black. Her body camera recorded the shooting.
The prosecution has said Wright was unarmed.
Earlier Wednesday, prosecutor Erin Eldridge also said Potter violated her training and "betrayed a 20-year-old kid." She said Potter had received extensive training, including in risks of firing the wrong weapon.
"This is exactly what she had been trained for years to prevent," Eldridge said. "But on April 11, she betrayed her badge and she failed Daunte Wright."
Officer pulled handgun, not Taser
Potter's Taser was holstered on her left side, and her handgun on her right. Prosecutors argue that she was trained explicitly about the danger of avoiding deadly mix-ups.
"We trust them to know wrong from right, and left from right," Eldridge said. "This case is about an officer who knew not to get it dead wrong, but she failed to get it right."
A mostly white jury was seated last week.
The sparked angry demonstrations outside the Brooklyn Center police station last spring. Those demonstrations, with protesters frequently clashing with police in riot gear, happened as former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was on trial just 16 kilometres away for killing George Floyd.
Potter was training a new officer when they pulled Wright over for having expired licence plate tags and an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, according to a criminal complaint.
When they found that Wright had an outstanding arrest warrant they tried to arrest him, but instead of co-operating, he got back into his car. Potter's body-camera video recorded her shouting "Taser, Taser, Taser" and "I'll tase you" before she fired once with her handgun.
Afterward, she is heard saying, "I grabbed the wrong [expletive] gun."
Engh said during the stop, the officer-in-training smelled marijuana. He also said Wright didn't have a license and gave the officer an old proof of insurance that was under another name.
There was a warrant for Wright's arrest on a weapons charge, which Engh said led that officer to believe that there was a "substantial chance" that Wright had a gun in the car — the prosecutor said he was unarmed — and that officers had no choice but to arrest Wright. There was also a restraining order against Wright, the defence lawyer said.
"A court of law directed him to arrest him," Engh shouted while pounding on the courtroom lectern. He told jurors it wasn't about expired tags by that point, and that officers also had to make sure the woman in Wright's car was OK because of the restraining order.
He said this was standard police work and that Potter made an error.
"We are in a human business," Engh said. "Police officers are human beings. And that's what occurred."
But they have also asserted that Potter was within her rights to use deadly force if she had consciously chosen to do so because Wright's actions endangered other officers at the scene.
Potter violated Taser use policy, prosecutor says
Prosecutors say Potter had been trained on Taser use several times during her 26-year police career, including twice in the six months preceding the shooting.
In one of their own pretrial filings, they cited training that explicitly warns officers about confusing a handgun with a Taser and directs them "to learn the differences between their Taser and firearm to avoid such confusion."
Eldridge told jurors they would hear about several policies that she says Potter violated, including a policy on Taser use that says flight from an officer is not a good enough cause for using it.
A jury of 14 people, including two white alternates, will hear the case. Nine of the 12 jurors likely to deliberate are white, one is Black and two are Asian.
The jury's racial makeup is roughly in line with the demographics of Hennepin County, which is about 74 per cent white. But the jury is notably less diverse than the one that convicted Chauvin in Floyd's killing.
Potter has told the court she will testify.
The most serious charge against Potter requires prosecutors to prove recklessness, while the lesser requires them to prove culpable negligence.
Minnesota's sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of just over seven years on the first-degree manslaughter count and four years on the second-degree one. Prosecutors have said they will seek a longer sentence.
