The jury is still out as I write this Tuesday morning. And I concede I’ve never had high expectations for a conviction in the Kim Potter trial. But that said, I was startled and relieved that not even one juror in the Derek Chauvin case clung to the “my cops for good or bad” line of thinking.
First degree manslaughter was always going to be a stretch. Potter would have to be a persistent, unbridled, nearly sociopathic menace to public safety (a la Chauvin) for a jury to go that far. But second degree should be a slam dunk.
Deep in ForWhatIt’sWorth land, my view of Potter’s guilt, her culpability, is built around her failure to be the experienced cop, the Alpha Dog, of the incident that ended with Daunte Wright’s death.
In her testimony she admitted that the trainee cop riding with her that day instigated the stop. Her failure, as a 26-year veteran, was not saying, “Uh, no. We’re not going to bother with expired tabs and an air freshner hanging off his mirror.” Moreover, as a veteran training a newby, she should have admonished the rookie that just because he spotted a young black kid driving a late model car was not a satisfactory reason to rolling in closer and look for some kind — any kind — of “stop-worthy” (revenue-enhancing) violation.
But rather than exert veteran, professional influence, Potter allowed the stop to go forward, then got so swept up in the bully boy(s) confrontation she panicked — panicked — mistook a yellow Taser for a black gun … and killed the kid.
A good number of people were moved by her emotional, sobbing testimony last week. Maybe it was real. Or maybe every reckless Minneapolis cop’s best friend, attorney Earl Gray, advised her that a good tissue-grabbing crying jag might work as well for her as it did for Kyle Rittenhouse over in Wisconsin.
(And on the subject of Mr. Gray, has anyone ever seen the precise numbers of the payouts to him for his defense in lo so many panicked cop cases?)
And speaking of theater, I loved Officer Potter’s costuming. Not a uniform. (She’s no longer on any force.) Or anything too, you know, “authoritarian.” But instead, a soft, cream-white embroidered Christmas-y blouse. By which, with tears and tissue, she was transformed from an out-of-control, gun-wielding assailant into everyone’s favorite middle-aged Minnesota mom.
There are reasons I’d never make the jury on a case like this.
If it were in my power to re-write sentencing guidelines, I couldn’t care less if Potter ever does a day in jail. Unlike Chauvin, a career thug with more than a dozen complaints for unnecessary violence against him, not to mention that $460,000 tax fraud he and the Mrs. were running when he killed George Floyd over a maybe fake $20 bill, Potter presents no on-going threat to the (mainly black) citizens of the Twin Cities.
But she is indisputably guilty, of failing to maintain command over subordinates and her own professional composure. Is it really asking too much that a court and a jury assert, with a verdict, that cops have a legal responsibility to control their biases and emotions?
I don’t think she should have been in the job she was in, and I also feel bad for her. I believe she is suffering for what she did — and not just because of the legal consequences, but because she accidentally killed a man, for such a stupid reason. Most people would have a hard time living with something like that because most people are not like Derek Chauvin.
And most of us have jobs that don’t put us at risk for killing someone by mistake when we’re having a bad day. Every time I hear of someone — a surgeon, a nurse, an air traffic controller, a crane operator, a trucker — killing someone because they made a terrible blunder, I feel deep sadness for their victims and also for them. The legal system has the right to punish them if they broke the law or acted irresponsibly, but for most of them the real punishment is the intense guilt and shame exerted by their own burden of conscience. It is a life sentence, with no parole except that which comes via dying. Can we not show at least a modicum of compassion for them?
Ok, I should be more compassionate. I’m not doubting it was a mistake that she deeply regrets. But the point I’m making is that even if she is the nice, grief-stricken Minnesota mom she appeared to be on the stand, her first and foremost role in the incident was to maintain self-composure and authority over the “trainee” cop she was with. She failed to do that … with consequences that turned deadly. Conceding that the killing was an accident does not mean there are no consequences for her professional failure(s). A less-hardened heart than might might be moved by her tears … but she is not the victim. Her victim is dead.
I see your point, and I respect it. As I mentioned, the legal system will have its say.
I’m coming at it from the angle of “just culture.” When people screw up we acknowledge the failure and try to a) set up better systems to guard against similar failures and b) treat the person in such a way that they can move on with their life and become/remain a constructive participant in our society. In other words, we try to bring them back into the fold, rather than shun them.
Just culture principles require that a person accept responsibility for what s/he did, and be accountable, and make reparations if that fits.
It also requires a certain willingness for the rest of us to identify with and have empathy for the almost universal human capacity for acting badly in times of stress, or for having lapses in attention or judgment.
This is something organizations do, and some do very well, but for some reason our criminal justice system has little interest in it. If it did, we would have more people having productive lives after they pay their debt to society.