BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – A police officer in prison for shooting a motorist fatally in Brooklyn Center in 2021 will be released after 16 months, the state Corrections Department confirmed. Kim Potter, now 50, served her time for manslaughter in the Shakopee prison The case became a case study in white-black community relations. Potter, who is white, had stopped Duane Wright, 20, a black man, because of a hangtag on his rearview mirror. The stop escalated, and Potter mistook the handgun on her belt for a taser gun, also on her belt, and killed Wright. Among upshots of the case has been a call by civil rights advocates against police using objects on hanging from rearview mirrors as a pretext for stopping motorists.
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Potter. Her latest prison photograph shows her thinner if not gaunt. Her attorney, Earl Gray, said the photo just shows “it’s rough doing time.” Below is a photo as the verdict was pronounced.
