Ex-Officer Kim Potter Released From Prison

UPDATE Apr 24, 2023 8:47 AM CDT

Ex-cop Kim Potter has been released from a prison in Minnesota, reports the AP. The state corrections department announced that Potter was freed about 4am Monday, the timing of her release having been kept under wraps "out of an abundance of caution." Potter, who is white, fatally shot Black driver Daunte Wright after a traffic stop in what she said was an accident. She served 16 months of a two-year sentence and will remain on supervised release until December.

Apr 22, 2023 8:57 AM CDT

The former Minneapolis-area police officer who killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright two years ago is getting out of prison after 16 months. Kim Potter, who claimed she mistook her handgun for her Taser when the Black motorist tried to flee a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, will be freed Monday and will serve another eight months on supervised release, NBC reports. Potter, 50, was sentenced to two years in prison early last year. Under Minnesota sentencing guidelines, inmates usually serve the last third of their sentences on supervised release.

After Potter was found guilty of manslaughter, prosecutors pushed for a sentence of more than seven years, but Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu, calling it "one of the saddest cases" she'd seen in more than 20 years on the bench, opted for a lighter sentence because Potter had intended to use a Taser on Wright. Potter applied for early release last year, saying she planned to work with domestic violence survivors and people experiencing homelessness, reports Axios, but the state Board of Pardons declined to consider the request. (After Potter was sentenced, Wright's mother said the "justice system murdered him all over again.)