Protesters gather outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, the United States, April 13, 2021. (Photo by Matthew McIntosh/Xinhua)
Former police officer Kim Potter, who shot 20-year-old black man Daunte Wright dead in Brooklyn Center, in the U.S. state Minnesota, will be charged with second-degree manslaughter for the killing, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said he is filing a second-degree manslaughter charge against Potter, a 48-year-old veteran female police officer who resigned on Tuesday and was arrested by agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) on Wednesday morning.
The BCA, which is investigating the fatal shooting, said Potter will be booked into the Hennepin County Jail. The second-degree manslaughter charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to local media reports.
Protesters clashed with police for a third night on Tuesday night in the city following the police killing of Daunte Wright in a traffic stop on Sunday. At a midnight news briefing, the State Patrol said there were more than 60 arrests.
One day before stepping down on Tuesday, the city's then police chief Tim Gannon said that Potter mistakenly used her gun instead of her taser in the fatal shooting, which he described as an "accidental discharge."
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner said Wright died by a single shot to the chest and ruled the death a homicide.
"No conclusions should be made until the investigation is complete," the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association said in a statement on Tuesday, calling for protests to be peaceful.
Wright's family is not "prepared to say that that was an accident," their attorney Jeffrey Storms told CNN on Tuesday.
Brooklyn Center, a city of about 31,000, is just a few miles away from Minneapolis, where the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin over black man George Floyd's death in May 2020 is underway.
"We will fight for justice for this family, just like we're fighting for our brother," Philonise Floyd said on Tuesday, extending his family's condolences to the family of Wright.
