Ex-Minnesota police officer, Kimberly Potter, has been released from jail due to a $100,000 bond.
Protests are on their fourth day of occurring ever since the public has had knowledge over Daunte Wright’s death.
Only hours after Potter was arrested, she was released from jail on the same day, according to the jail records of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. She had been charged with manslaughter for killing Daunte Wright, a 20 year old father, last Sunday.
She will appear on court on Thursday.
A second-degree manslaughter charge in Minnesota is defined by a person being accused of the cause of somebody else’s death out of negligence, yet still being aware of the risk of fatal injuries or even being the cause of death.
Wright was killed last Sunday during a traffic stop, a tragic coincidence of having a 10 mile radius from where Derek Chauvin is being tried for the murder of George Floyd from a year ago.
If Potter is convicted, she will face up to 10 years in prison alongside a $20,000 fine. Though, if an individual has no criminal record, there is a possibility that they will only face up to four years in prison.
The senior female officer has been working in the department for 26 years and had mistakenly taken her gun out instead of her taser, resulting in the fatal death of Daunte Wright. She resigned this last Tuesday, and protests continue to rise as more information is revealed on both ends.
Businesses in downtown Minneapolis are currently boarded up from the outcome of the Dereck Chauvin trial, and more damage might ensue after the results of Wright’s case.
“With that responsibility comes a great deal of discretion and accountability. We will vigorously prosecute this case and intend to prove that Officer Potter abrogated her responsibility to protect the public when she used her firearm rather than her taser,
Her action caused the unlawful killing of Mr. Wright and she must be held accountable,” says Irman Ali, a Washington County assistant criminal division chief and director of the Major Crime Unit.
There were new details released about the incident, and Potter had been training a rookie cop before shooting Wright in the car as he drove away. They had pulled him over while he was driving his white Buick on Sunday, running his identification and discovering that he had an outstanding warrant alongside misdemeanor weapons charges.
On the following Monday, Potter left her house and her address had been leaked, police ended up guarding the property and added fencing. Currently, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Wright’s death as a homicide, for the cause of death was a “gunshot wound of the chest.”