Former Agent Who Killed African-American In Minneapolis Will Be Charged With Second Degree Murder

Former Agent Kim Potter of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, Minnesota.Bruce Bisping / Star Tribune via Getty Images

Kimberly Potter, the former police officer who shot and killed African-American Daunte Wright, will be charged with murder in the second degree, Washington County Prosecutor Pete Orput announced Wednesday.

In Minnesota the charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine of up to $ 20,000.

Potter was arrested this Wednesday morning.

The death of the unarmed 20-year-old black man at the hands of the police in a Minneapolis suburb has resurrected racial protests in the city celebrating the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd, a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement. .

The Washington County prosecution's announcement comes a day after Potter resigned from his post at the Brooklyn Police Center, northeast of Minneapolis.

The 48-year-old ex-agent had been placed on administrative leave, but pressures to kick her out grew stronger as the protests continued.

This Tuesday he resigned after 26 years of service assuring that it was "the best for the community, the department" and his fellow agents.

Hours later, local police chief Tim Gannon resigned.

On Sunday afternoon three police officers stopped the young man's car allegedly for a minor traffic offense

and they discovered that he had a pending court order for carrying a weapon without permits.

The agents tried to arrest him, but the African American resisted and re-entered the vehicle.

Potter pointed a gun at him and yelled

three times

.

However, the agent fired her pistol at the driver, who traveled several blocks in the car, before dying.

"Shit, I just shot him," Potter is heard saying in body camera video, which Gannon released the day after the event, in an attempt to increase transparency in the case.

Gannon described the shooting as an "accidental discharge", putting forward the thesis that Potter wanted to shoot with a

(stun gun) and not with his firearm.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office concluded that Wright died of a gunshot wound to the chest and called his death a homicide.

Wright's family has stated that they will not be satisfied with anything other than the murder charges against Potter.

"Prosecute them, as they would us," Nyesha Wright, the deceased's aunt, told a news conference.

"We want the highest justice."

The event occurred in Hennepin County, but the local prosecutor's office sent the case to the Washington County office as part of an agreement for prosecutors to investigate police shootings in other jurisdictions to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

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