Kim Potter Verdict: Justice is About Accountability Not Punishment

Protesters march through downtown Minneapolis as the first day of the Kim Potter manslaughter trial ends. Potter is on trial for the April 11, 2021 shooting death of 20-year old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minn.

There is an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa and a group of Springfield’s geniuses are tasked with leading the town.  They offered innovative ideas like getting rid of the green light at intersections and which saved time but left the traveler wondering where they were going in such a hurry.  The one that I really like is how they try to “sex up” jury duty.  Bar owner Moe gets a letter asking him to serve on a jury and it goes like this: “You have been chosen to join the Justice Squadron, 8 am Monday, at the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance.” Moe, thinking he has joined some kind of the equivalent of the Justice League is excited to volunteer.

I thought this in relation to today’s sentencing hearing of Kim Potter.  Potter was a police officer with the Brooklyn Center police department until last spring when she shot and killed Duante Wright, an African American motorist.  Potter supposedly meant to taser Wright, but mistakenly reached for her gun instead and unintentionally shot Wright.  Potter was convicted of manslaughter in December and today, she was sentenced to two years in prison.

When I saw the two years sentence, I winced a little.  Should it have been more?  Yes.  But I also can understand why the sentence turned out that way. Unlike other police shootings, it appears that this was more about incompetence than it was about fear or disregard for a life ala Derek Chauvin.  She was a 26 year veteran that served with distinction.  Unfortunately having see a number of police events with African Americans, this felt different than the others.  That meant there should be different sentence.

But most of my friends weren’t thinking this way.  In many people’s eyes, Kim Potter was yet another white police officer getting away with murder.

Except she didn’t.  Kim Potter was convicted in December.  She wasn’t let off the hook.  She was judge by the state and was found guilty of manslaughter.

Moe is excited that he is going down to the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance.  He wants to dole out punishments.  The writers of the Simpsons were on to something.  We might talk about justice until the cows come home, but what we really want is vengeance.  Not an Ignio Montoya You-killed-my father-Prepare-to-die kind of vengeance, but one where the other person suffers.  We want them live a life of hell on earth.

What happened in that Minneapolis courtroom yesterday wasn’t vengeance, but it was justice.  Kim Potter was held accountable.  That’s more than some other cops who killed black men only to receive a slap on the wrist.  I still can remember the frustration people felt in the aftermath of the Philando Castille trial.  Police officer Jeronimo Yanez was not guilty of the crime and during an interview he seemed to be saying the faint smell of marijuana was enough to justify the shooting Philando Castille. There was no justice in the Castile case, but there was in today’s case.

But here’s the thing: many times, justice doesn’t feel like justice.  Vengeance makes us feel good or at least feel satisfied in a way that justice can’t.  In religious language, justice sets the world to rights, but even if it does that, one can feel the result is incomplete. Wright’s mother, Katie, expressed disgust with Potter at the sentencing hearing telling Potter that she would “never be able to forgive you for what you’ve stolen from us.”  After the sentencing, she discounted Potter’s tears when she spoke to the family. “This is the problem with our justice system today. White women’s tears trumps, trumps justice.”

You can’t fault Ms. Wright for her anger.  She has lost her son in one of the most unimaginable ways.  Even though things are far, far better than it used to be, racism is still a problem. That said, was there no justice?  I don’t think so.  We might not agree with the sentencing, but in this case, Potter was convicted.  The state determined that even if it is was unintentional, even if she only faces 2 years in prison, she was guilty of taking a man’s life.  After years of seeing police getting away with literal murder, we are seeing officers being held to account.  In my view, that’s what matters.  It’s not the sentencing doesn’t matter, but it didn’t matter as much as holding the police to account.

The Twin Cities has had far too many instances of police killings of late.  From Philando Castile to Amir Locke, we have made ourselves the epicenter of police misconduct.  I’d like some other metro area to take over from Minneapolis-St. Paul.  But I hope judgements like Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter will make police misconduct happen less.