George Floyd's girlfriend Courteney Ross hugs Daunte Wright's mom before Kim Potter trial
George Floyd's girlfriend and Daunte Wright's mother hugged each other ahead of former Minneapolis cop Kim Potter's manslaughter trial for killing Wright.
Potter, 48, is charged with first and second-degree manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old Wright, who was shot during a traffic stop on April 11 after he had expired license tags and a warrant out for a prior weapons violation. Potter fatally shot Wright after grabbing her gun instead of her taser, she has claimed. The 20-year-old was fondly remembered by Floyd's girlfriend Courteney Ross, who said she served as Edison High School's dean of students while Wright was a student.
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Ross, who remembered Wright as a "joy" who was always on the basketball court, embraced his mother Katie Wright on Monday, November 29, at a conference less than a mile from the Hennepin County Courthouse, noting that "this is pain like no other". The devastated parent explained, "It's just been nerve-wracking. Anxiety, hurt, anger, stress... every emotion you can think of, I've been feeling it." As quoted by the Star Tribune, she said she was hopeful for accountability, but not justice. "Justice would be Daunte home and nobody else being murdered by police," she said. "Accountability is what we can hope and pray for come verdict day."
Ross and Wright were joined by the families of Emmett Till, Philando Castile, and Hardel Sherrell who died at the hands of police. Ross recounted the day Wright was killed, saying she was with members of these families to commemorate the birthday of another individual who had been killed by a cop. She said she learned about Wright's death from Amity Dimock, whose autistic son Kobe Dimock Heisler died in a police shooting in Minnesota in 2019.
"By the time I got home, I found out that man, that young man was Daunte Wright," Ross said. "Mind you, Daunte's murder took place during the international trial of my man George Floyd who was murdered by Derek Chauvin. The fact that Kim Potter g a weapon for a routine traffic stop when the entire world was looking at racist cops under a microscope proved to me that Kim Potter was so brash and brazen that she murdered a Black man with no thought."
Potter was heard on bodycam footage panicking after she shot Wright, saying, "I'm going to prison." Paul Engh, her attorney, has claimed the video is proof that the 26-year department veteran made an honest mistake and "an accident is not a crime." Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu, who is presiding over the trial, wrote that for Potter to be found guilty on second-degree manslaughter charges, prosecutors will need to prove that she acted with "culpable negligence" when she fatally shot Wright. Meanwhile, for her conviction on a first-degree manslaughter charge, they must prove that she acted "recklessly" and a jury would have to find that Potter was aware of the risk of killing Wright and "made a conscious decision to act without regard" to the risk.