Police say officer killed young black man by mistake 1:55
(CNN) -
Former police officer Kim Potter, who said she mistook her firearm for her stun gun when she fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop near Minneapolis, collapsed on the stand Friday and described the "look of fear "on the face of another agent as he fought with Wright.
"It's nothing I've seen before," she said crying, remembering that the agent reached into the car to grab the 20-year-old black father during the April meeting.
"We're fighting. We're trying to stop him from walking away. It just got chaotic. I remember yelling, 'Taser, Taser, Taser' [a type of stun gun], and nothing happened. And then he told me I shot him," she said crying and placing her hands on her face.
It was the first time that the 26-year veteran police in the service publicly recounted in detail what happened that day.
Some members of the jury took notes.
Potter's testimony could be the centerpiece of his defense against the first- and second-degree murder charges in the incident, which sparked days of unrest in the city of Brooklyn Center after a summer of coast-to-coast protests over how the police treat people of color.
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When questioned by prosecutor Erin Eldridge, Potter said Wright had not threatened the officers.
- "Didn't you ever see a gun?" Eldridge asked.
- "No," Potter said.
- "You never threw a punch, did you?"
-"No".
- "You never kicked anyone?"
-"No".
- "He never said, am I going to kill you?"
-"No".
- "He never said, am I going to shoot you?"
-"No".
- "He never said:" Is there a gun in the car and I'm going to get you? "
-"No".
Woman demands justice for deaths at the hands of the police 1:33
Potter testified that she has been trained with electric weapons since 2002. The prosecutor showed photos of Potter's yellow and black stun gun and black handgun, side by side.
Eldridge asked about the differences in pulling a gun and a stun gun from opposite sides of a gun belt.
- "How does that gun come out of that holster?"
- "It would move forward."
- "How do you get out of the sheath with your hand?"
- "It would swing forward and you would pull it out."
- "And the stun gun on the other hand, you would press the button, move it back and take it out, right?
-"Yes".
Daunte Wright's Aunt: Police should protect us all 0:25
Eldridge then played a video of the moments leading up to the shooting.
In court, Wright's mother cried and her father held her hand, according to a report from the group.
- "You have the firearm in your right hand, correct?" The prosecutor asked Potter.
- "Yes," said the ex-cop, starting to cry again.
- "And you're pointing it directly at Mr. Wright, correct?"
Potter collapsed.
He closed his eyes, said the reporters' report at the trial.
Defense attorney Earl Gray requested a break.
The judge stopped the process for lunch.
Gray comforted his client.
The state, which rested its case Thursday, produced more than two dozen witnesses over six days, including a law enforcement expert who testified that Potter had no justification for using deadly force when he fatally shot Wright.
Potter described how a traffic stop came undone on Friday when Wright was told he was being held for a pending warrant.
Potter couldn't remember what he said after pulling the trigger, he testified.
The former police officer testified that she probably would not have stopped Wright's car if she had been alone.
But another officer pointed out that the driver had used a turn signal inappropriately, the tags were expired, and an air freshener hung from the rearview mirror.
The attempt to arrest Wright, and the fatal shooting, was set in motion when officers learned of Wright's warrant for a weapons violation, he testified.
Potter resigned by force days after the murder.
"So many bad things happened," Potter testified, referring to the riots that followed the shooting.
"I didn't want my coworkers ... I didn't want anything bad to happen to the city."
His pistol was a new model, Potter testified.
Daunte Wright called his mother just before he died 0:39
Minutes before recounting the shooting, Potter testified that he had received a new model of stun gun days before the shooting.
Potter received the new stun gun on March 26, he said.
He shot Wright on April 11.
He told the jury that he had never deployed the device while on duty.
"I used to pull out my stun gun on rare occasions, but I don't think I ever deployed it," he said.
Potter told jurors that he had not received any "gun confusion" training.
The topic came up occasionally in training.
Potter, dressed in a light yellow sweater and dark pants, opened her testimony by removing her mask and giving her age, 49, and saying that she has been married to a retired police officer for 25 years.
They met in high school;
she was 15 years old.
Potter told jurors that they have two children, one is an active duty Marine and the other a college student who plans to be home for the holidays.
Potter's husband, Jeff Potter, sat in the courtroom while she testified, as did Wright's father, Arbuey Wright, and mother, Katie Bryant.
Potter had other family members in the courtroom.
Potter's former police chief, a law enforcement expert and other defense witnesses were called to the stand Thursday, saying he concluded "there was no violation ... of policy, procedure, law." after reviewing the body camera and other video after the April 11 shooting.
On Thursday, the judge denied a defense request for an acquittal on grounds that the state had presented conflicting evidence about whether the use of a stun gun during Potter's encounter with Wright would have been unreasonable.
Prosecutors say Potter acted recklessly
Video of the shooting shows after officers detained Wright and attempted to arrest him with a pending warrant, he returned to his vehicle and attempted to flee.
At that point, Potter pulled out his firearm and shot him, then said that he intended to use his stun gun instead.
"I grabbed the wrong damn gun and shot him," Potter said right after the shooting.
His defense characterized the murder as an accident and at the same time argued that it was within his right to use deadly force to protect another agent who was reaching into Wright's car when Potter opened fire.
Prosecutors attempted to counter that claim with expert testimony, arguing that Potter was negligent and reckless in mistaking his weapon for his stun gun.
"The use of deadly force was not appropriate, and the evidence suggests that a reasonable agent in Potter's position could not have believed it was proportionate to the threat at the time," the associate professor at the School of Law testified Wednesday. the University of South Carolina, Seth Stoughton, for the state, calling Potter's actions "excessive and inappropriate."
A stun gun would have been effective in incapacitating Wright, the defense's first witness testified Thursday.
Still, deadly force is justified if an officer is partially inside a vehicle while a suspect is trying to drive away, said Stephen Ijames, a law enforcement expert and former Missouri assistant chief of police.
Daunte wright
