By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – The jury resumed deliberations for a third day in the trial of Kimberly Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who mistook her handgun for her Taser and killed Black motorist Daunte Wright, after indicating they might be deadlocked.
The jury resumed deliberations at 8:25 a.m. CST (1425 GMT) on Wednesday at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, one day after asking the judge for guidance on how to proceed if it could not agree on whether to convict or acquit Potter.
Responding to that question, Judge Regina Chu told the jury of six men and six women to work toward reaching a consensus and to be open to changing their views on the case, while maintaining their honest assessment of the evidence and the law.
The jury has now deliberated for more than 15 hours.
Potter, 49, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges, which carry maximum sentences of 15 and 10 years, respectively. Potter said she thought she was drawing her Taser when she shot Wright in the chest with her 9 mm handgun during a traffic stop on April 11.
In their closing arguments on Monday morning, prosecutors said Potter acted recklessly and with “culpable negligence” in drawing the wrong weapon, while the defense argued that Wright caused his own death by resisting arrest and attempting to flee, and that Potter was justified in using force.
Potter is white and the shooting of Wright triggered several nights of protests outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, with critics calling it another example of police brutality against Black Americans.
The incident occurred just a few miles north of where Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, was at the same time standing trial https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jurors-resume-deliberations-derek-chauvin-murder-trial-2021-04-20 in the case of George Floyd, a Black man whose 2020 death during an arrest set off racial justice protests in many U.S. cities. Chauvin was convicted of murder.
(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Alistair Bell)
