By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – The jury began a second day of deliberations on Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who mistook her handgun for her Taser and fatally shot Black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.
The 12-member jury got to work at about 9 a.m. local time (10 a.m. EST) in Minneapolis after roughly five hours of deliberations on Monday afternoon, which followed closing arguments in the morning.
In their closing remarks to the jury, prosecutors said Potter acted recklessly and with “culpable negligence” in drawing the wrong weapon, while the defense argued that Wright caused his own death by resisting arrest and attempting to flee, and that Potter was justified in using force.
Potter, 49, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges, which carry maximum sentences of 15 and 10 years respectively. Potter says she thought she was drawing her Taser when she shot Wright in the chest with her 9 mm handgun on April 11.
Potter is white and the shooting of Wright triggered several nights of protests outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, with critics calling it another example of police brutality against Black Americans.
The incident occurred just a few miles north of where Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, was at the same time standing trial in the case of George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 death during an arrest set off racial justice protests in many U.S. cities. Chauvin was convicted of murder.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Howard Goller)
