There are 14 jurors selected, 12 who will deliberate and two alternates, but the two alternates were excused after closing arguments. The 14 include seven White men, four White women, two Asian women and a Black woman. They will be sequestered until the trial ends.
Earlier Monday, prosecutors and a defense lawyer delivered closing arguments.
Prosecutors maintain Potter, 49, was negligent and acted recklessly in mistaking her gun for her Taser.
The defense has characterized the killing as an accident that happened during a traffic stop and argued Potter was within her rights to use deadly force to protect a fellow officer, who was reaching into Wright’s car when she fired the gun.
“Did they prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she caused this death? No. Daunte Wright caused his own death, unfortunately,” defense attorney Earl Gray said.
When the officers found out Wright had outstanding warrants, they couldn’t allow him to drive away, Gray said.
“That’s not protecting the public. That’s not serving the public. They had to stop him,” he said, while admitting Potter mistakenly grabbed her pistol instead of the Taser.
“Even though she didn’t know she was using it, she had the right to, and that’s what the law is,” said Gray.
Potter has pleaded not guilty to charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter.
There are 14 jurors, 12 who will deliberate and two alternates. The 14 include seven White men, four White women, two Asian women and a Black woman. They will be sequestered until the trial ends.
Potter fatally shot Wright in Brooklyn Center — near Minneapolis — after police pulled Wright over for an expired tag. During the stop, officers learned he had an outstanding warrant and attempted to arrest him.
Potter can be heard yelling “Taser” repeatedly before she shoots Wright. After firing her handgun, she yells, “Holy s***! I just shot him!”
Eldridge said that Potter had 26 years of training in use of force with her firearm, 19 years of training on Taser use, including training on “weapon confusion.”
“Every year she signed the paperwork acknowledging the risks,” Eldridge said. “All that training and all that experience shows she was aware of the risks associated with her weapons.”
While the defense says the shooting was a terrible mistake, Eldridge said, “this was no oopsie.” “Accidents can still be crimes if they occur because of recklessness or culpable negligence,” the prosecutor said. “It’s not a defense to the crimes charged.”
But Gray said Potter’s Taser training doesn’t mean she couldn’t make a mistake in the stress of the moment.
“In the walk of life, nobody’s perfect,” he said. “You can be trained forever and under exigent circumstances make a mistake.”
He also said that her admitted mistake — grabbing the pistol instead of the Taser — indicates she’s not guilty of the charges.
“She didn’t know she had a weapon. She didn’t know she had a gun,” he said. “How can you consciously recklessly handle a gun if you don’t know you have one?”
Most of Gray’s closing argument focused on Wright’s actions during the traffic stop. Gray said Wright tried to flee when officers said that he had outstanding warrants, one for a weapons offense.
“The causation was Daunte Wright,” he said. “Everything (Potter) did was legal and then he tried to break away.” He added that “you can reasonably infer he was guilty of the weapons violation” and tried to run.
The defense rested Friday afternoon after an emotional Potter spent hours on the stand, breaking down several times as she described the “chaotic” moments that led up to the shooting.
“I was very distraught. I just shot somebody. I’m sorry it happened,” Potter cried as a prosecutor asked her about her behavior moments after the fatal shooting. “I’m so sorry.”
While being cross-examined by Eldridge, Potter said Wright had not threatened the officers in any way during the traffic stop that resulted in the shooting.
“He never said, I’m going to kill you?” Eldridge asked.
“No,” Potter replied.
Potter’s testimony was the first time she had publicly given her account of what happened.
Video showed fatal encounter
Potter can be heard yelling “Taser” repeatedly before she shoots Wright. After firing her handgun, she yells, “Holy s***! I just shot him!”
She resigned from the police department days later.
Eldridge presented more than two dozen witnesses over six days, including a policing expert who testified Potter was not justified in using deadly force when she fatally shot Wright.
A defense witness, Stephen Ijames — a law enforcement expert and former assistant police chief from Missouri — testified Thursday that a Taser would have been effective in incapacitating Wright.
Ijames also told jurors deadly force is warranted if an officer is partly inside a vehicle as a suspect is attempting to drive away, a reference to the officer who was reaching into Wright’s car when Potter opened fire.
CNN’s Carma Hassan, Anna-Maja Rappard, Brad Parks and Ashley Killough.
Source : Nbcnewyork
