The State of Minnesota needs to review it's Annual Training (Which all Officers should be going through anyhow) for Police and Constables. The fact that an officers who has been on the force for years pulls a Glock instead of a Taser by accident is pretty damning of how bad the Annual training has gotten.
Yeah, the fact that the issues we’ve seen lately have been Minneapolis or Minneapolis area makes me think they have serious problems. Looking at the process, Brooklyn Center cops get only
six weeks of academy training followed by in the field supervision (which is probably what they mean when they say Potter was an instructor). That’s...pretty lacking. Now, Minneapolis itself goes 14-16 weeks so I think the issue is less training and more a problematic culture (sounds rather like Baltimore in that regard). There was a task force convened to review stuff and they published a document in late February, but it seems like action needs to be taken.
And then she had to shoot.
Like you can draw your gun and just point it at the suspect.
That's usually enough to have most people comply.
Police are trained (at least are supposed to be) that you should never draw down unless there is an imminent and lethal threat. You are correct that pointing a gun at someone usually gets their attention, but Wright didn’t necessarily see it, since he was busy trying to flee (yes, he shouldn’t have resisted arrest but two wrongs don’t make a right), but the gun
shouldn’t have been out at all.
As a side note in case this comes up, I know that Jacob Blake in Wisconsin had some similarities to this and was considered justified, but the key difference was that the cops in Wisconsin
did operate by the book and tried to subdue Blake without immediately escalating to lethal force: unarmed and with a taser (twice, as a matter of fact, and he shrugged that off), and he was in the process of not only still resisting while within reach of a knife (considered a lethal threat), but he was attempting to drive off with three children, making it an attempted kidnapping (i.e. he was in the process of committing a violent felony and it could well have led to a hostage situation).
Panic of the moment.
The person was a known violent offender who was known to have a gun, him diving into his car like he did no doubt sent her into a full on panic that he might be going for said gun to shoot her with. So she momentarily forgets the gun shaped object on her left is her pistol instead of her taser.
Two problems:
1) “Panic of the moment” is not a defense. Police are trained (or at least are supposed to be trained) to be able to think clearly in high-stress situations. And tasers (at least all of the ones I’ve seen issued to cops) have significant differences from a pistol -yes, they’re vaguely gun-shaped, but also bulkier and bright yellow or something similar so they’re visually distinct from a sidearm.
Also, 2) Wright wasn’t a “known violent offender”, his warrants were for carrying a gun without a permit and failure to appear in court. First one is a gross misdemeanor, second one is also a misdemeanor. He didn’t try to actually kill or seriously injure anyone.
Second-degree manslaughter is absolutely the right charge in this case: She clearly didn’t mean to kill Wright, but she made a mistake and he died. Wasn’t racism, just an incredibly stupid mistake, which is why that charge exists.
