Expectations for convicting bad cops may have improved, but sentencing is another matter. Kim Potter, the Minnesota police officer convicted of manslaughter for killing Daunte Wright, an unarmed black man pulled over for having an air freshener dangling off his rear view mirror, has received only a two-year sentence for the slaying. She'll be out in 16 months, with good behavior.
At her sentence, judge Regina Chu talked about how awful everything had been for Officer Potter.
Potter is a "cop who made a tragic mistake," the judge added. "She drew her firearm thinking it was a Taser, and ended up killing a young man." … "This is not a cop found guilty of murder for using his knee to pin down a person for nine and a half minutes as he gasped for air," she said. "This is not a cop found guilty of manslaughter for intentionally drawing his firearm and shooting across his partner and killing an unarmed woman who approached his squad."
Wright's family was "completely stunned" by the sentence, their attorney Ben Crump said in a statement.
The family is devastated.
Wright's father similarly expressed his strong discontent with Potter's sentence. "I feel cheated, I feel hurt," he said.
"They were so tied up into her feelings and what's going on with her," Arbuey Wright said, referring to Potter, "that they forgot about my son being killed."
She got away with it.
