A former Minnesota police officer who was convicted of killing a Black motorist when she used her handgun instead of her taser during a traffic stop is out of prison and delivering presentations at law enforcement conferences, stirring up a heated debate over how officers punished for misconduct should atone for their misdeeds.
After Kim Potter served her sentence for killing Daunte Wright, she met with the prosecutor who charged her case. That former prosecutor, Imran Ali, said Potter wanted to do something to help other officers avoid taking a life. Ali saw the presentation as a path toward redemption for police officers who have erred and an opportunity to promote healing in communities already shaken by police misconduct.
But Katie Wright, Daunte’s mother, said the plan amounts to an enraging scheme where her son’s killer would turn a profit from his death and dredge up painful memories in the process.
“I think that Kim Potter had her second chance. She got to go home with her children. That was her second chance,” Wright said. “I think that when we’re looking at police officers, when they’re making quote-unquote mistakes, they still get to live in our community. They still get to continue their lives. That’s their second chance. We don’t have a second chance to be able to bring our loved ones back.”
Sounds like “atonement” doesn’t include reaching out to the families whose lives they ruined with their li’l mistakes?
If someone killed my loved one, they’d be the last person I’d want to hear from. I don’t want to hear what they have to say, because it wouldn’t be for me, it’d be for their own closure. Fuck 'em.