The Consequences Of Actions On Both Side.…

One of the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of my life has been and still is that actions have con­se­quences. I will explain how actions result in dan­ger­ous and dead­ly con­se­quences imper­il­ing the per­son who ini­ti­at­ed the action and oth­ers around them.
I speak of the killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Brooklyn Center Minnesota man who was killed in the com­mu­ni­ty of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a mere 10 miles from where Derek Chauvin was on tri­al in the killing of George Floyd.

Former senior police offi­cer Kim Potter faces tri­al for killing the young father. I have thought about this case for a very long time, and I have read a lot of mate­r­i­al on what tran­spired that led to the young man’s death; and I have also thought about the issue from the per­spec­tive of a for­mer police officer.
Most of all, I have giv­en thought to some of the com­ments that peo­ple on all sides have made, most­ly along balka­nized racial and ide­o­log­i­cal lines.

Let us drill down as rea­son­able people.
Did offi­cer Kim Potter com­mit murder?
Murder is the killing of a per­son by anoth­er with mal­ice afore­thought. It is dif­fi­cult to say that the offi­cer want­ed to mur­der Daunte Wright when she attempt­ed to arrest him for hav­ing an out­stand­ing warrant.
Before The police stopped Daunte Wright, nei­ther offi­cer Kim Potter nor the oth­er offi­cers involved in the inci­dent knew that mis­ter Wright had an out­stand­ing warrant.
There are claims that Daunte Wright had no dri­ver’s license, his tags were expired, there was an order of pro­tec­tion issued against him, and of course, there was a war­rant out for his arrest on weapons charges.
At the ten­der age of 20-years old, it is fair to say that mis­ter Wright was on a slip­pery slope and head­ing for disaster.
The sem­i­nal issue here is that the police were not privy to any of that infor­ma­tion until they decid­ed to pull over his car for an air fresh­er hang­ing over his rearview mirror.

Officer Potter is report­ed to have received exten­sive train­ing in know­ing the dif­fer­ence between a taser and a ser­vice weapon. Officers whose dom­i­nant hand is their right usu­al­ly wear the taser on their left side, and their ser­vice weapon on the right.
Left-hand­ed cops would do the reverse. Some cops wear the taser on the front of their uni­form. Regardless of how it is worn, the idea is to ensure there is no mis­tak­ing the use of each weapon.
Officer Potter claimed that she mis­tak­en­ly pulled her ser­vice weapon instead of her taser when she shot Daunte Wright.
As a for­mer police offi­cer, I am ful­ly con­ver­sant that actions have con­se­quences; the imme­di­ate response of offi­cer Potter after shoot­ing mis­ter Wright can be crit­i­cized, but it is dif­fi­cult to argue that she was not trau­ma­tized immediately.
That video will go a long way in her defense that she had no inten­tion of shoot­ing mis­ter Wright.
As we try to make sense of what occurred, we must remem­ber that even if offi­cer Potter did not intend to shoot Daunte Wright-Daunte Wright is no less dead, and offi­cer Potter killed him.
The fact that mal­ice is not present does not mean there was­n’t neg­li­gence, care­less­ness, or reck­less­ness, all aggra­vat­ed, because mis­ter Wright is dead.

Daunte Wright is dead; sor­ry, I made a mis­take can­not change that fact.
There may not have been mal­ice afore­thought, but that does not exon­er­ate offi­cer Potter of culpability.
The jury is almost Lilly white, as is cus­tom­ary when police offi­cers face tri­al. It is impor­tant to see how these peo­ple will hon­or their obligations.
Daunte Wright made a series of mis­takes in his life, includ­ing choos­ing not to sub­mit to being arrest­ed. Sometimes bad deci­sions have cumu­la­tive effects, and the case of Daunte Wright’s death is a clas­sic exam­ple of the cumu­la­tive effect of bad decisions.
The most impor­tant take­away from this case is that the police pro­filed Daunte Wright using the air fresh­en­er to ini­ti­ate an ille­gal pre­tex­tu­al stop.
Daunte Wright is dead because of that pre­tex­tu­al stop. Officer Kim Potter is fac­ing felony charges because of that pre­tex­tu­al stop.
As long as police across the coun­try are allowed to use pre­tex­tu­al stops to harass the peo­ple they want to, peo­ple will con­tin­ue to die. Not just from mis­takes as in this case, but the raft of killings of inno­cent unarmed motorists by tyran­ni­cal wannabe-Rambo cops.

This is a case where the defense for for­mer offi­cer Potter should show some class and not try to impeach the char­ac­ter of Daunte Wright.-Daunte Wright’s record already impeach­es him.
But noth­ing in his record war­rant­ed the death sen­tence. In defend­ing his client, Kim Potter’s defense attor­ney has been on a tear in try­ing to make the case that mis­ter Wright got what he deserved.
They can­not help them­selves even though the defense strat­e­gy has­n’t been that the offi­cers were in fear for their lives; Potter’s defense lawyers are mak­ing the case that he deserved what he got. It is clas­sic white man’s vit­ri­ol because nei­ther he nor his chil­dren will ever face being racial­ly pro­filed by the police in America.
Officer Potter makes for a sym­pa­thet­ic fig­ure even among the litany of the illic­it police killing of minorities.
Kim Potter was oper­at­ing in a flawed sys­tem that empow­ers her to abuse rights, that sys­tem not only endan­gered the lives of Daunte Wright and his girl­friend but also placed her in the posi­tion she is in today. She should face the con­se­quences for his death, and that is the rea­son there are less­er offenses.
That is why pros­e­cu­tors appro­pri­ate­ly charged for­mer offi­cer Potter with first-degree manslaugh­ter and reck­less han­dling or use of a firearm.
She should be con­vict­ed on both charges.

.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mikebeckles.com.A