Source: The Washington Post / Getty
After being convicted of wrongfully killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April 2021, disgraced Minnesota cop Kim Potter will be released from prison after serving 16 months behind bars for the crime.
Upon leaving the Shakopee Minnesota Correctional facility, the Daily Mail reported that she will spend another eight months on probation.
Potter was charged with fatally shooting Wright after claiming she mistook her handgun for a taser during a botched traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. After being wounded by the gunshot, the unarmed young man drove away from the incident but crashed his vehicle. He died after paramedics couldn’t revive him.
On the week of the former police officer’s release from prison, Wright’s mother, Katie, told the Star Tribune:
“Her [Potter] incarceration was just a moment in time. She cursed us with a forever life sentence.”
Originally, the convicted killer was supposed to be in prison for two years but was released early for unspecified reasons.
As a result of the trial, a Hennepin County Jury found Potter guilty of first and second-degree manslaughter. However, her conviction and uber-lenient prison sentence were deviations from the standard sentencing of approximately seven years in prison, with 15 years being the maximum.
The judge over the case, District Court Judge Regina Chu, ordered the 50-year-old killer to spend two years in the women’s penitentiary stating, “This is the saddest case in my 20 years on the bench.”
The since-retired judge expressed, “On the one hand, a young man was killed. On the other hand, a respected 26-year veteran police officer made a tragic error by pulling a handgun instead of a taser.”
