USA: The trial of the policeman who killed a young African-American man in April has started

Simple mistake or serious negligence? The trial of a white police officer who killed a young African-American man began today in Minneapolis, where the tragedy reopened the wounds from the murder of George Floyd.

Kim Potter, 49, is on trial for manslaughter. On April 11, 2021, a police officer shot and killed Dode Wright, 20, in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of the city.

The case has caused a stir, as it coincided with the trial of Derek Sauvin, the white police officer who killed 46-year-old African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis in Minneapolis.

Potter’s trial is being held in the same court, with the same prosecutors and some of the lawyers involved in Sauvin’s trial. Today, after the jurors were selected, only one of whom is African-American, the two sides presented the general framework in which the prosecution and the defense will move.

The facts are undeniable: Kim Potter and two of her colleagues stopped Dode Wright’s car for a routine check. After finding out that a warrant was pending against the driver for violating the law on weapons, they decided to arrest him. The young man, who was not armed, tried to escape. To stop him, Potter pulled out a gun and marked him, repeatedly shouting “teaser.” She claims that she accidentally shot with her service weapon, believing that it was the teaser that would simply immobilize him.

“He is not being prosecuted for premeditated murder,” said prosecutor Erin Eldridge, but that was not an “unfortunate mistake.”

Kim Potter “did what she had to do to protect a colleague” who was in danger of being swept away by Dode Wright’s car, her lawyer Paul Eng said. Because of “stress”, “she made a mistake, it was an accident”, he added, paralleling her with a “surgeon” who, after 100 surgeries, can still make a mistake.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ