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Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who killed 20-year-old Black man Daunte Wright when she allegedly mistook her firearm for a stun gun, has been released from prison.
On Monday (April 24), Potter was released from the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee at 4 a.m., CNN reports. The Minnesota Department of Corrections said she was released in the early hours of Monday morning due to safety concerns.
Wright was killed on April 11, 2021, after he was pulled over for expired license tags just miles from where George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. The 20-year-old had an open arrest warrant for failure to appear on a weapons charge.
While attempting to arrest Wright, Potter drew her firearm instead of her stun gun as he allegedly tried to flee. In body camera footage, Potter is heard shouting “I’ll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!” before opening fire.
“I grabbed the wrong f***ing gun,” she said.
Potter was convicted of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in Wright's killing. She was sentenced to two years in prison and will serve the last eight months of her sentence on supervised release.
Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told CNN that she was "dreading" the day Potter was released from prison.
“Some say I should forgive to be at peace but how can I? I am so angry. She is going to be able to watch her kids have kids and be able to touch them,” the mother said. “I am always scared I am going to forget my son’s voice. It gave us some sense of peace knowing she would not be able to hold her sons. She has two. I can’t hold my son.”
However, Potter's inability to serve as a police officer again gives her a "sense of peace," she added.
“She will never be able to hurt anybody as a police officer again,” Katie Wright said. “That is the only sense of peace we get as a family.”
According to Potter's attorney, the ex-officer doesn't intend on returning to Minnesota and will live in Wisconsin amid her supervised release.
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