Photo: CNN
(CNN)The prosecution and the defense on Wednesday made their opening statements in the manslaughter trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who said she mistook her gun for a Taser when she killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.
Assistant Minnesota Attorney General Erin Eldridge emphasized to the jury that officers take an oath “to protect life, not to take life,” and the prosecution played video of the deadly April encounter during a routine traffic stop.
The video clip showed Potter, with her gun drawn, warning Wright multiple times as he is getting back into the driver’s seat of his car that she is going to “tase” him. She then pulls the trigger.
After Potter appears to realize she shot Wright with her gun — not her Taser — the officer says, “S**t, I just shot him … I grabbed the wrong f***ing gun. I shot him.”
The former Brooklyn Center police officer put her hands to her head and fell to the ground.
“There is no do over when you take a young man’s life,” Eldridge said. “We trust them to know wrong from right, and left from right” — a reference the difference in placement between a Taser and a gun.
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