Officer That Shot Daunte Wright, Police Chief Both Resign
Officer Kim Potter, who fired the shot that killed Daunte Wright, and Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon who gave the initial press briefing about it, have resigned.
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, Mayor Mike Elliott said today that Police Chief Tim Gannon has resigned following the shooting of Daunte Wright. The officer who shot Wright has also resigned.
“As of this morning, we have the resignation — we have received a resignation letter from officer Kim Potter. And in addition to that, we have also received a letter of resignation from the police chief,” Elliott said at a news conference today.
Elliott said that Commander Tony Gruenig is going to be the acting chief.MORE
Potter is accused of killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright in what the police chief described as an accidental shooting. She had been with the police department for 26 years.
In a letter to Elliott, acting City Manager Reggie Edwards and Police Chief Tim Gannon, Potter wrote that she “loved every minute of being a police officer and serving this community to the best of my ability.”
She should not only resign, but retire. I don’t blame her too much, because she is clearly a victim of training that emphasizes using the firearm over other devices. I think she truly wanted the Taser, but her muscle memory had no path to the Taser, only the gun.Report
this is the truth.Report
One other thing I will note about police training is that police, excepting SWAT, almost never train as a unit. I think the only real exception is riot control, and even that…
Why this is a problem is precisely why Daunte is dead, and why a lot of other people police encounter die. There is no command and control on a scene, every officer is off doing their own thing in their own head, while also trying to read the scene and interpret the body language and what-not of other officers who they may or may not have worked or trained with before.
So we have two officers engaging Daunte, and Potter rolls up and decides to draw a weapon and stop Daunte. As best as I can tell, she didn’t communicate with the other officers what they were trying to do, or what they needed, etc.
This is why time and again, we see videos of police that resemble Keystone Cops, because they have zero small unit training, no established CoC, no established roles, etc. It’s just a bunch of people all trying to be the hero.Report
Gia Vang claims to have obtained a copy of the resignation letter.
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At the risk of speaking too early, why does it seem like the more egregious shootings get the wagons circled and the “no angels” and zero consequences and ones like this that seem to have far more gray area always have heads rolling in minutes?Report
Kazzy, this is a great question.
If you want to go all conspiracy theory, I’d say that it’s worth looking into Kim Potter’s record. That said, if she’s got 22 years of experience on the force (a number I think I saw?), hey. Maybe this is an opportunity to make a vaguely graceful exit and retire to a nice gated community.
Let’s face it, it’s not going to be easier to be a police officer next year than it is this year.
If less conspiratorially minded, I’d point to Scott Alexander’s The Toxoplasma of Rage essay. It has a handful of insights, I guess.Report
Oh. It wasn’t 22 years. Here. Just the first line of the Warshington Post article:
Officer Kim Potter resigns: 26-year veteran and former union president fatally shot Daunte Wright, police said.
I don’t know about you, but I have fewer questions than I used to.Report
Can you elaborate?
My mind wonders about “former union President”? Is she former because she upset the wrong people and now lives on the wrong side of the blue line?Report
I’m just doing math in my head. 26 year veteran.
When did you enter the workforce? 23? I graduated at 23, got a “real” job, and (with an exception of a week here or there) I have been working ever since.
I suppose you could say that I’m a 25 year veteran of the whole computer thing. Next year, I get to be a 26 year veteran.
When it comes to “former union president”, I’d say that she was one of the folks In Good Standing in the department and her pension is one that I’m sure would be envied by 95% of the commenters on the board.
Would *I* retire next year, if I could? Heck yeah, I would!Report
Got it. That makes more sense than my thought.Report
if you sign on as an officer at 18 its easy to get to 26 years and be relatively young. Small town departments don’t always require college degrees – or any degree.
That aside – I suspect if she resigns she keeps her pension. Fired – not so much.Report
I think she’s 48. Age lines up with her getting a college degree and then joining right after that.Report
Fair enough. Jaybird seemed credulous, and I thought it worth reminding folks that the rules for police hires allow really young officers in many cases.Report
Not at all. I wasn’t looking at “she’s 48!” as much as “she’s been doing this for a year longer than I’ve been doing computers and, lemme tell ya, I am ready to retire… I ain’t surprised that she might be.”Report
That aside – I suspect if she resigns she keeps her pension. Fired – not so much.
I’m 99% confident that it doesn’t work that way. A pension is, in principle, your money that the pension program is managing for you. Taking it away when firing someone would be like demanding that the employee return 20% (or whatever) of her pay from the last 26 years, with interest. Some pensions have a vesting period, such that you don’t get one if you quit or get fired before a certain period of time, but those are typically like 3-5 years, not 26+.
I wrote that before looking it up, but just to bump that 99% up to 100%, I checked, and sure enough, it doesn’t matter.
Also, police officers tend to retire early. According to this story, retiring after 20 years on the job is fairly common. It’s a bit old, but this 1987 study found that Illinois state police officers retired after an average of 26 years on the force.Report
Not a hard and fast rule but my perception is they are very defensive about ‘I feared for my life’ and/or the officer ‘followed protocol designed to protect officer safety.’ These are two things where they want the widest possible breadth of discretion, including the discretion to implement utterly stupid policies and perceive threats where no normal person would.
Not that there isn’t overlap but I do not think they find ‘well this officer was just plain negligent in the normal course of duty’ to be nearly as much of a threat. The more it looks like the former the more of a fight. The more it looks like the later the less likely they are to go to the mat.Report
To add, I think it’s helpful to narrow down the conduct they want to defend. They want to defend their ability to kick in doors in the middle of the night, even if they get the wrong house occasionally. They want to defend department approved choke holds to subdue suspects even if they periodically kill someone in the process. There are larger principles of discretion and protocol at stake. I don’t think ‘officer drew the wrong weapon in the heat of the moment’ has the same implications.
Not that you don’t also see kid glove treatment for officers caught DUI off duty but I think that’s more insider favoritism and not particularly unique to law enforcement.Report
There’s also a question of what’s being exposed. If Potter stays and is defended, they may also find themselves defending training that de-emphasizez less lethal options.Report
Maybe they’re that subtle. I think it is more likely a case of we will defend you as long as you followed the policy, because it’s the policy and the freedom to set the policy that is important. But if you didn’t follow the policy? Well, best of luck.Report
Could be.
They want to retain the ability to be monsters and will forgo the ability to be human to achieve it.
Follow and defend awful policies… just don’t make actual mistakes in the process.Report
Related:
Kenosha officer who shot Jacob Blake won’t face discipline, police chief says
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/no-discipline-kenosha-police-officer-who-shot-jacob-blake-chief-n1263986
Officer Rusten Sheskey returned from administrative leave in late March. He was “found to have been acting within policy and will not be subjected to discipline,” according to a statement from Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis on Tuesday.
…
He said that while it is “absolutely appropriate” to ask whether seven shots is excessive, Sheskey said he continued to fire until the “threat” stopped as part of his training.Report
Translation: Policy says it’s ok and expected to kill the suspect in this situation.Report
yepReport
Forward movement:
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Jonathan Turley has a blog post that breaks down the relevant law.
He cites the Minnesota 609.205 provision and points out that this particular passage:
(The law goes 1-5 and 2-5 aren’t particularly relevant)
Here’s the part that I was paying attention to:
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I understood why the officer resigned, I was vaguely curious as to why the chief resigned…
Then I saw this exchange.
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