Jurors have convicted former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter guilty on all charges.
Potter was charged with first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter.
The trial for Potter took a week with the prosecution resting after bringing experts and those who knew Wright to the stand for three days.
The defense took two days, with Potter being the last witness, taking the stand to explain the traffic stop..
When Potter took the stand, she broke down into tears, saying that she did not mean to kill Wright saying that she “didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
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Potter’s defense claimed that she was not intending to fire her gun at Wright during the traffic stop, saying it was a mistake.
“I remember yelling, ‘Taser, Taser, Taser,’ and nothing happened, and then he told me I shot him,” Potter said while crying. The footage from Potter’s bodycam shows Wright saying, “Ah, he shot me” an instant after the shooting.
In closing arguments, Potter's attorney Earl Gray argued that Potter's use of deadly force was justified, even if she did not know she was using it. Further, he claimed that Wright attempting to flee made him responsible for his own death.
"He didn't want to go to jail. He wasn't going to listen to these police officers," Gray told the jury. "That's the cause. Everything before that, the police officers did as they were supposed to."
The prosecution claimed that Potter had gone through extensive training when she became an officer to distinguish between a firearm and a taser.
Experts for the prosecution went over the differences between a gun and a taser with the jury and discussed what happens during a traffic stop.
In closing arguments, an assistant attorney general for the state of Minnesota Erin Eldrige hammered home that Wright had his life taken away from him by Potter, who had received extensive training.
"This was no little oopsie. This was not putting the wrong date on a check. This was not entering the wrong password somewhere. This was a colossal screw-up, a blunder of epic proportions," Eldridge said. "It was precisely the thing she had been warned about for years, and she had been trained to prevent it."
After a full day of deliberations Tuesday, the jury asked Judge Regina Chu what they should do if they cannot reach a consensus, leading many to wonder if a verdict would be reached. The jury ultimately deliberated for roughly 27 hours before delivering their verdicts early Thursday afternoon.
