Editor’s Note: Elliot Williams is a CNN legal analyst. He is a principal at The Raben Group, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm. Follow him on Twitter @elliotcwilliams. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
On Thursday, a jury in Hennepin County, Minnesota, found former police officer Kim Potter guilty of two counts of manslaughter in the death of Daunte Wright.
An important question to ask today is not just whether whatever sentence Potter receives – likely in the 6.5- to 8-year range under Minnesota guidelines – is adequate, but how to prevent the next unspeakably tragic mistake by an armed officer.
I use the word “mistake” deliberately. The parties agreed on a point central to the trial: Potter accidentally shot Wright. Potter’s conduct immediately prior to shooting Wright – shouting “Taser!” repeatedly – and expressing what appeared to be genuine surprise and anguish after the shooting indicate as much.
And prosecutors charged Potter with only two counts of manslaughter – both for the unintentional killing of Wright. Looking at the footage, one would have a hard time arguing that Potter drew her weapon and intended to kill Wright.
American society entrusts law enforcement officers to use lethal force when warranted. This, I believe, is not a bad thing; there are some situations in which public safety may well be served by an officer killing somebody. However, that uncomfortable reality should never act as a shield for officers who have abused or been reckless in the exercise of that power.
While the country is slowly making progress toward rethinking how it addresses intentional misconduct by officers, Wright’s entirely preventable killing ought to provide an opening for addressing how officers are trained, and how they are held accountable when that training fails.
Many across the country already fear encounters with law enforcement as it is. Potter’s carelessness could justifiably take their fear of the police to another level. An officer is already more likely to kill you because you’re Black. Beyond that, regardless of what race you are, she may still kill you because she can’t even be trusted to take the basic care to know which weapon she’s holding.
While Potter’s defense at trial – that the killing was an honest mistake – was plausible and within the bounds of the law, it still was an insult to the credibility of law enforcement officers and cheapens the lives of members of the public who encounter them. And, perhaps even worse, it taunts the public with the fact that officers have guns and, well, shrug, sometimes mistakes are made.
In the end, I believe the jury made the right call by unanimously voting to convict Potter on both counts she was charged with – first- and second-degree manslaughter. Notably, both statutes feature a variation of the word “reasonable” when describing the conduct that is captured by the law. Here, that ultimately means that both crimes come down to what we should expect of officers when entrusted with the ability to kill.
Few things are less “reasonable” – either legally or as a matter of basic human dignity – than confusing a deadly weapon with a nonlethal one (that also happens to be a bright color, shaped and weighted differently, and was supposed to have been holstered on the opposite side of her firearm).
In a perfect world, Potter would be an outlier from the overwhelming majority of officers who better internalize their weapons and situational training. However, even the faint possibility that she isn’t should alarm all of us. It should make every community across the country stop whatever they’re doing and take a serious look at how much, and what, training officers receive.
In the end, Potter’s sloppiness speaks volumes about society’s tolerance of (accidental) lethal force from police officers. Not all negligence is created equal, and we should all be outraged by the colossal ineptitude, on a literal life-and-death matter, that got us here. Other forms of negligence – paperwork errors, misplaced evidence, running a stop sign and getting into a fender bender – wouldn’t have left an empty seat at Wright’s family dinner this Christmas.
Yes, mistakes happen. Some, however, are inexcusable.
Correction: An earlier version misidentified the former police officer charged in the case.
