Tom Wood
Former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter has been released from prison 16 months into a two-year sentence for the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright.
Potter shot Wright dead after mistaking her gun for a taser during a traffic stop.
She was released from the Minnesota Correctional Facility - Shakopee in the early hours of Monday, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Potter was convicted of two counts of manslaughter for the incident that caused the death of Wright, who was unarmed.
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The shooting took place during a Brooklyn Center traffic stop in 2021, when Wright was pulled over by police officers for having a hanging air freshener in his vehicle and expired tags.
The final third of Potter’s sentence will be carried out under supervised release, with that period elapsing in December.
According to CNN, Potter’s attorney Earl Gray said that she will not be returning to Minnesota, but will now live in Wisconsin.
Potter had 26 years of experience on the police force before this incident caused her to lose her job, as well as sending her to prison.
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However, it also resulted in Wright’s untimely death, and his mother Katie has spoken of how she had been ‘dreading’ Potter’s release.
She claims that the stress and upheaval caused by her young son’s death and the subsequent trial and conviction – as well as the extra unwanted attention it brought – caused her to suffer a stroke that left her with temporarily blurred vision.
She said: “Some say I should forgive to be at peace but how can I?
“I am so angry.
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“She is going to be able to watch her kids have kids and be able to touch them,
“I am always scared I am going to forget my son’s voice.
“It gave us some sense of peace knowing she would not be able to hold her sons.
“She has two.
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“I can’t hold my son.”
However, she did admit that Potter no longer being able to serve in the police because of her conviction has given her ‘a sense of peace’.
“She will never be able to hurt anybody as a police officer again,” Katie continued.
“That is the only sense of peace we get as a family.”
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Potter cried on the stand during her trial in 2021, apologising for her mistake and claiming she ‘didn’t want to hurt anybody’.
Under questioning from prosecutors, she said: “I was very distraught.
“I just shot somebody. I’m sorry it happened.”
The city of Brooklyn Center agreed to a $3.25 million settlement to Wright’s family in June 2022.
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That settlement has not yet been received by the family because of other unrelated legal disputes, though they admit to being ‘hopeful’ of receiving the money within the next 90 days.