It's going to be near impossible to convict latest killer cop. She's just going to claim...

[brush]

she made a mistake/panicked in a moment of stress. She was not only a 26-year veteran and president of the police union, she was also a training officer. She might have actually been out training the other two officers on that stop, (and of course she picked a driving-while-black driver on a trivial matter that should've been ignored in these pandemic times) and in trying to demonstrate how to handle the arrest, she f_cked up. I mean how many arrests which suddenly turned violent has she had to handled on a sleepy, small town force of under fifty officers, even if she is a long-time veteran?

She screwed up big time under stress and her lawyer is going to play that to the hilt.

[Caliman73]

1. I don't think a conviction on criminally negligent homicide will be impossible.

She can claim all she wants. The fact that she is a 26 year veteran AND a training officer will strongly suggest that she should not have panicked. The defense can stress that but the prosecution can focus on the fact that her negligent actions, and the fact that there was instruction not to perform stops on minor issues lead to the young man's death. She allowed the situation to escalate.

[brush]

2. Great points all. I hope you're right. What happens in the Chauvin trial will...

have a huge influence, IMO, all over the nation in killer cop cases. If he walks or it's a hung jury because of one juror, we'll see that repeated all over.

If he's convicted, which is what should happen, that'll have tremendous influence in breaking the blue wall of silence, just as the several cops who testified against Chauvin already did.

[Caliman73]

3. Agreed. Chauvin is definitely a marker.

I am know that I am biased, but it is difficult to see how reasonable doubt could have been introduced by the defense that I observed through the trial. The prosecution put on a masterful case.

[Habitation]

5. Chauvin is counting on one Magat to save him

There is probably more than one on that jury

They are revoltingly everywhere

[brooklynite]

12. Why do people leap to this conclusion?

It basically claims that the Prosecution is incompetent at their job.

[Towlie]

15. No, to say the defense is counting on something makes no claim about the prosecution.

 
←

The defense could be counting on a rogue juror simply because that's their only hope. And on top of that, it's conceivable that a juror could go rogue out of fear of the police.

[Bettie]

16. No, it claims that

MAGAts are everywhere and they aren't willing to listen to evidence with regard to cops, they just watch that video and feel happy about it because the Black man ended up dead.

[brooklynite]

17. And that's why the Prosecutor (and Defense) carefully interview prospective Jurors.

[Solomon]

19. As a lawyer i can tell you the jury

selection process is no guarantee. Jurors lie too you know. Most people will say anything to get out of jury duty. And some will say anything to get on a case.

[brush]

18. The prosecution did a great job. Blackwell and the witnesses and experts were all...

top notch but the defense has the advantage of just getting one person to have a doubt.

[uponit7771]

23. Judge might fuck it up, jury and prosecution can be perfect but in T Martin case judge said...

... there was no duty for Zimmerman to retreat and that screwed up the whole logic path for the jury imho.

It aint over till its over

[RobinA]

36. So, Judges

applying the law are fucking it up?

[uponit7771]

39. No, judges that constrain the jury will. In TM case the judge didn't have to apply no duty ...

... to retreat seeing Zimmerman never invoked SYG law.

That was a mistake by the judge in that case IMHO because Zimmerman never said he wasn't in danger

[brush]

6. Yes they did. They elicited emotion from the early eye witnesses and with their...

experts they knew exactly the right questions to ask to get the results they wanted. Blackwell was excellent, so on-point.

[Withywindle]

4. I saw a tweet from a doctor about this that made a very good point

You know who else often has to make life-or-death decisions very quickly on the job? Medical professionals. If a doctor or nurse grabs the wrong piece of equipment, or the wrong type of medication or what have you in a panic, and someone dies because of that? They face consequences. Maybe not criminal conviction, but very likely hefty malpractice suit and loss of a license if it's really bad.

You admit you're so bad at your job that after 26 years you still make a mistake that led to a wrongful death? You don't get to have that job anymore. McDonald's is always hiring.

edit: I know she resigned. But sometimes the gang finds a way to sneak them back in somewhere else. Similar to the way the Catholic Church moves pedophile priests around.

[onetexan]

10. +1 -K&R

Very hard to interpret this as anything otherwise.

[joshcryer]

7. Nope, she resigned, she won't have the unions backing.

She is toast. Though she will likely only get negligent homicide as opposed to something more severe. Had she not resigned she would likely get a slap on the wrist.

[exboyfil]

8. Noor got 12 years

Seems like this should be about the same.

[uponit7771]

9. +1, how does she mistake a bright yellow taser for a gun?!?!

[PJMcK]

11. A question about police equipment

Most cops wear a utility belt for their gear. This includes their firearm, a flashlight, handcuffs, pepper spray, a Taser (maybe), a hand-held radio and other equipment that police need in the course of their duties. The fully-loaded belt probably weighs 20 lbs.!

If a cop is carrying both a pistol and a Taser, are they worn on the same side of the officer's body or are they next to one another? How did Kim Potter set up her utility belt?

Seems like it would be hard to confuse the two weapons especially if they're on different sides of the body.

[Maeve]

14. It has been reported that most carry the gun on their dominant side, taser on other side

Specifically to prevent this sort of accident.

Here, from the NYTimes:

Brooklyn Center Police Department protocol dictates that officers wear their guns on their dominant side and Tasers on the opposite side of their bodies, to reduce the risk that they will confuse the two weapons.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/13/us/daunte-wright-taser-gun.html

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Adding On To Maeve's Post

Around here, they are on opposite sides & the tasers used would very unlikely be confused with the handgun.
Those I've seen are 60-80% plastic and because the battery is in the grip, a great deal of the mass is low & back.
The grip looks fatter to me as well, but it's not like I measured them both.
I have a hard time believing one of our cops could confuse the two.

[StarfishSaver]

25. She either shot him on purpose or so completely overreacted to his behavior that she panicked

And no one will convince me that, if it was an overreaction resulting in panic, that that overreaction had nothing to do with his race.

[ecstatic]

13. She knows how to get off

Regardless, I will not give her a pass. Hell, she did not give Daunte a pass. If we're to believe her account, she wanted to tase and humiliate Daunte in front of his girlfriend and with his mother on the phone. And for what?

She knew what she was doing. Even if she really thought it was a taser, there was no need to introduce that level of violence into this situation.

[Disaffected]

21. Ever heard of

surgeons who amputate the wrong limb or remove the wrong kidney?? The fact is even experienced supposedly competent individuals screw up badly on occasion.

I find the lynch mob mentality displayed sometimes on this forum to be incongruous with the, what I understand to be, the basic goals and purpose of the forum.

Maybe she did shoot the victim on purpose and tried to coverup with a fake explanation. Maybe it was a tragic mistake or accident. We just do not know at this point.

[StarfishSaver]

24. A "tragic mistake" can still be a criminal act

And I suspect she would not have made the same "tragic mistake" if the the victim were a white man under all of the same circumstances. White men - even criminals - do not elicit visceral fear in people . Unfortunately, Black and Brown men are seen by too many people as inherently dangerous and, therefore, behaviors that would be thought of as no big deal when engaged in by whites are enough to trigger panic and overreaction in some white people. And even more unfortunately, many of the white people who are susceptible to that kind of fear based on their own prejudices hold positions that allow their "mistakes" to have tragic results.

[Disaffected]

26. Certainly.

Not suggesting she be let off. She has been charged with criminally negligent homicide IIRC which IMO, given what we know, seems not unreasonable.

IIRC, doctors who screw up v badly and kill the patient can also be similarly charged. Many other circumstances are treated similarly.

[StarfishSaver]

27. Then perhaps your claim that wanting her to be prosecuted is "lynch mob behavior" is over the top

[Disaffected]

28. It's a bit strong alright but,

I was referring to the contention that she must have done it deliberately and the claimed mistaking a gun for a taser was a ruse - therefore guilty of murder.

As for she would not have made the same mistake had the perp been a white man, that is solely an assumption and IMO unwarranted in the absence of evidence.

[StarfishSaver]

29. I'm highly suspicious of her claim that she "mistook" her gun for a taser

It doesn't pass the smell test to me. She isn't some rookie. She's a highly trained veteran.

Yes, people make mistakes. But why did she make such a mistake? What was so stressful and life-threatening that she would panic like that? Why did she even think she needed to tase him? Would she have had the same reaction if Duante were a white guy? Why do these "mistakes" seem to happen disproportionately to Black people? Could it be because cops too often see Black men as more inherently dangerous than similarly situated white men?

These are valid and important questions. And I, for one, am tired of having to ask them and tired of them not being answered. And I'm really tired of excuse after excuse after excuse being made to justify the extrajudicial murders of Black people.

Here we are going back and forth about whether the cop made a "mistake." We spend a lot of time talking about how stressed cops are and whether they panicked or made the wrong decision in a split second. But when Black men don't comply perfectly, people are quick to blame them for their deaths. They aren't given the benefit of the doubt. Their fear and stress are not acknowledged. No. They must think clearly and rationally and behave in an exemplary fashion or their deaths are their fault and no one else's.

I'm sick of it.

[LAS14]

31. You seriously thinks she was calling out "I'll tase you" over and over and...

... then said "Oh fuck, I shot him," so she could cover up an intentional murder??????

[StarfishSaver]

32. It's happened before

Cops have been known to say things before shooting people that turn out to have been a ruse.

"Stop resisting arrest!" and "He's going for my gun!" are common ones.

I'm not saying that's what happened here. But I also don't just accept at face value what she said and what she now claims just because she says happened. How much longer are we going to give the police a benefit of the doubt they don't deserve - especially after how often we've seen that lying and covering up is not an unusual phenomenon?

[Disaffected]

33. Yes, that's pretty much all we have now - suspicions.

Why did she make such a mistake? Why do surgeons amputate the wrong leg, why do parents accidently leave their kids locked in hot cars, why did the nurse administer IV potassium chloride (killing the patient) rather than sodium chloride?

I suspect she "needed" to tase him because he was trying to break away from the cop who was trying to cuff him, and get back into the car.

As for going back and forth about whether the cop made a "mistake", isn't that the crux of this debate (as there is no doubt that she killed him)?

I'm sick too of how black people are mistreated so many times by cops but that does not bear on the guilt of the accused in this specific instance in the absence of further evidence.

[brush]

35. Spot on. The Army Lt., a an officer trained to keep his head, did everything perfectly...

even asking the out-of-control cops to calm down. If he hadn't he might be dead now too. Compare his reaction to the frightened 20-year-old who panicked when the cops tried to cuff him because he's seen too many times how cops kill unarmed black men and he didn't want it to be him.

He reacted out of fear and the cop shot him instead of tasing him. She didn't have to do either since they had his information. She claims she made a mistake. Whether she did or not we'll never know but we know the young man is dead. She panicked like a first-year rookie instead of the 26-year veteran she is.

Yeah, sure. That's what she's going with to get off.

[Hortensis]

40. Everyone here believes she should be prosecuted for killing that boy,

as of course she will be. It's wrong to claim they don't.

It's also wrong to conflate those who believe in justice with the the kind who in the passion of the mob don't know or care what it is. This is exactly the same as those who demanded the "Central Park Five" be found guilty of murder; that those arrested were minorities and the victim a pretty white woman are merely variations, the vengeful mob mentality the same.

There IS a subset of angry people here who insist that she is guilty of intentional homicide and who could not be trusted with access to her and a rope.

I admire a lot of what you offer, Starfish Saver, and am sure that in other situations you would argue equally passionately that race should be irrelevant to guilt and innocence and that all people headed for court should receive the same impartial justice they would receive 20 years ago or 50 years farther along the arc of justice.

[harumph]

30. I don't think it's even plausible Potter fired her sidearm intentionally.

Even had she planned to do it - she's a 26 year veteran with her entire career to lose and possible criminal prosecution.
She would know it's being video'd.

BUT she should be criminally liable for her negligence that resulted in death. If a cop can't reliably maintain his/her cool when in
stressful conditions, they shouldn't be a cop.

That's not to say that plenty of racist cops don't intentionally execute people of color. It's shocking and it happens at
a rate that I would guess many didn't expect prior to ubiquitous video. The circumstances of this case appear distinct from the George Floyd case, and ideally, a just punishment should fit the crime; no more and no less.

[Disaffected]

34. In view of what we know at this time,

I would agree on all your points.

Every case has to be judged on its own merits...

[StarfishSaver]

38. Yes and no

Every case has to be judged on its own merits, but they cannot be judged in a vacuum.

Unfortunately, too many people are all too willing to put on blinders and pretend that each case has no connection to any other larger set of circumstances.

That makes it easy to dismiss the shooting of Jacob Blake as justified and not based on a y racial bias because he didn't "comply" and then dismiss the shooting of Adam Toledo because he complied but could have had a gun in his hand when he did exactly as he was told and then dismiss the murder of George Floyd because he had a record and then dismiss the murder of Duante Wright because he had a warrant and then dismiss the shooting of Rayshard Brooks because because he shouldn't have tried to run away, etc. ...

And If you ignore the fact that this keeps happening over and over and over again and black men are shot for all kinds of excuses, most of which are completely contradictory ... And if you further ignore the fact that white people in similar and worsr situations are not shot down in the streets this way, it's really simple to claim that each individual shooting is justified and understandable.

Only if you pull back and look at all of this in context can you see the real picture.

[Disaffected]

43. So then, we are left with

assumption, suspicion, generalization, stereotyping, smell tests and guilt by association. The courts don't work on those premises for very good reasons and neither should anyone else. I really doubt your arguments would be allowed as testimony in any court.

I also don't believe most anyone here is ignoring or dismissive of other shootings.

[RobinA]

37. Agree

There have been some pretty disturbing threads on DU lately. Supposed liberals sounding like wingers, but with different targets. Which I guess shouldn't be all that surprising. People are people no matter what their political views are.

[Hortensis]

41. Yes, but overall liberals and other "lefties are less like that,

and that needs to be encouraged. People do tend to live up and down to expectations and to the standards of those around them.

[Sympthsical]

42. Oscar Grant's killer was convicted

And for the same situation.