Daunte Wright: Manslaughter trial of ex-police officer begins

Opening statements are set to begin on Wednesday in the trial of a former Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a black motorist in April.

Police say Kim Potter, 49, mistakenly drew her gun instead of her Taser and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright.

Ms Potter now faces two manslaughter charges for Mr Wright's death. Her defence team claims he was resisting arrest at the time.

Mr Wright's death sparked protests and clashes with police.

According to police officials, Mr Wright was pulled over for an expired tag on his car's licence plate when he was driving in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb. His family, however, has suggested that he was being racially profiled when police stopped him.

Body cam footage released after the incident shows Mr Wright attempting to flee from police after they told him he faced arrest for an outstanding warrant. He had missed a court date for two earlier misdemeanour charges.

Ms Potter can be heard repeating the word "Taser" several times before firing a shot from her pistol.

Mr Wright's mother later told reporters that her son had called her after he was pulled over and claimed to have heard a scuffling sound and an officer telling him to hang up his phone.

When she called back, Mr Wright's girlfriend, who was in the car with him when he was stopped, informed her that her son had been shot and showed her that he was "laying there, unresponsive".

Ms Potter, a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, has claimed the shooting was an accident. Both Ms Potter and Brooklyn Park Police Chief Tim Gannon resigned in the wake of the incident.

The former police officer's defence team has said they plan to call a forensic and police psychologist to the stand to testify about the sort of "slips and capture" errors - the theory that errors like mistaking a gun for a Taser can happen in high stress situations - they believe led to the shooting.

Ms Potter is also expected to testify in her own defence.

Prosecutors have argued that Ms Potter was negligent during the incident and should have been able to tell the difference between her pistol and a Taser.

Under Minnesota state law, a person can be found guilty of second-degree manslaughter if it is proven that they demonstrated culpable negligence whereby they create an unreasonable risk and "consciously take chances of causing death or great bodily harm" to another person.

Mr Wright's death on 11 April 2020 came amid already heightened tensions in the Minneapolis area during the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer later convicted of murdering George Floyd, an unarmed black man.

Dozens of people were arrested during clashes between police and protesters following Mr Wright's death.

A jury of 14 people, which includes two alternates, will hear the case, and the trial will be live streamed.