MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The trial of a Minnesota police officer charged in the shooting death of Daunte Wright opened its second week of testimony on Monday with an assistant medical examiner telling jurors that the gunshot wound was “far and away” the most significant injury Wright suffered, despite his car crashing immediately afterward.
Wright, 20, was killed on April 11 after being pulled over in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center for having expired license plate tags and an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. The officer who shot him, Kim Potter, is charged with manslaughter.
Potter, a 26-year police veteran who resigned two days after the shooting, said she meant to draw her Taser to stop Wright after he pulled away and got back in his car as officers tried to arrest him on a warrant for a weapon charge. Potter, 49, is white and Wright was Black. His death, which came while Derek Chauvin was on trial in nearby Minneapolis in George Floyd’s death, set off several nights of angry protests in Brooklyn Center.
Dr. Lorren Jackson, an assistant Hennepin County medical examiner, testified Monday that the gunshot wound causing injuries to Wright’s heart and lungs is what caused his death. He said with these injuries, one can survive “seconds to minutes.”
“Far and away the gunshot wound to the chest was the most significant injury,” he said during testimony in which he walked jurors through Wright’s autopsy.