Kim Potter who shot and killed Daunte Wright on Sunday April 11, has resigned from the Police Department, her union said in a statement on Tuesday, April 13.
The city’s police chief, Tim Gannon, also announced that he was also resigning.
In a letter that Ms. Potter sent to city officials on Tuesday, she said she was resigning immediately, the union said.
“I have loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability, but I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately,” she wrote.
Ms. Potter, 48, had been an officer with the Brooklyn Center Police Department for 26 years. She was first licensed as a police officer in Minnesota in 1995, and graduated from Saint Mary’s College in Winona, Minn., in 1994 with a criminal justice major, school officials said.
Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by officer Kim Potter on Sunday afternoon, April 11 during a traffic stop in the the ca Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, after officer Potter said she mistook her taser for a gun and fired at him. He died about 10 miles from where George Floyd, another black man was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last year.
At a press conference, Brooklyn Center’s police chief Tim Gannon said three officers stopped Wright and a passenger in a car with expired license-plate tags on Sunday night.
After running Wright’s identification, officers found an outstanding warrant for an unspecified gross misdemeanor. One officer removed Wright from the car to take him into custody.
Body-camera footage showed Wright stepping out of the driver’s side of the vehicle, with his arms and hands held behind his back. As an officer attempts to handcuffs Wright, he broke free and jumped into the driver’s seat.
Another officer, wearing the body camera whose footage was released, pointed a weapon at Wright during a struggle with another officer, and yelled, “Taser! Taser! Taser!” officer Potter then fired a single shot, which was not from the car to take him into custody.
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