Duante Wright’s mother has slammed the release of ex-cop Kim Potter who shot him for mistaking a gun for a taser

Duante Wright’s grieving mother has said the ex-cop who shot her son ‘damn us forever’ – days before the former cop is released from jail.

Katie Wright has blasted the decision to release Kim Potter after just 16 months. The former police officer accidentally shot and killed 20-year-old Duante when she mistook her stun gun for her gun.

She told the Star Tribune that Potter’s “detention was only momentary,” but added, “She cursed us with a life sentence.”

Potter, 50, was serving her sentence at Shakopee Minnesota Correctional Facility and will serve an additional eight months of probation starting Monday.

She was recently seen in a mugshot looking frail more than a year after her conviction in the April 11, 2020 shooting of Wright.

The 26-year veteran of the force claimed she accidentally shot Wright when she reached for her gun instead of her taser during a traffic stop over his expired license plates in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

Potter, who was convicted of first- and second-degree manslaughter in February 2022, received a sentence well below the guidelines of about seven years and the fifteen-year maximum the state of Minnesota allows for first-degree manslaughter.

Wright’s family then slammed the verdict handed down by Judge Regina Chu, who cried as she announced Potter’s sentence last February.

Katie said on Friday the only comfort she had was knowing Potter could never be an officer again.

“Even though we didn’t get the responsibility that we really wanted, for the rest of her life she will never be able to confuse a taser and a gun again,” she said.

Lead prosecutor Keith Ellison had sought a seven-year sentence and had until May 2022 to appeal Chu’s sentence.

But he accepted the decision and urged others to do the same.

“As Ms. Potter is leaving prison, I wish her every success in her re-entry, as do I wish all people returning to society from incarceration,” Ellison said in a statement. “However, my deepest condolences go out to Daunte Wright, his family and his young child who will grow up without a father.”

At the time of the shooting, Potter and other police officers had stopped Duante for driving with expired licenses while a warrant for his arrest was in place.

Wright tried to drive awaycausing Potter to reach for her taser.

In bodycam footage, Potter can be heard repeatedly yelling, “I’ll tass you! tasers! tasers! Tasers!’

Moments later, she fired a round and immediately said, “I picked the wrong damn gun.”

She collapsed on the curb in despair and cried out, “I shot him. Oh dear God.’

Chu felt sorry for the former officer during her sentencing, acknowledging her guilt and calling the shooting an accident. Potter’s clean background also led to her reduced prison time.

At her sentencing, Potter cried as she apologized to Duante’s family.

She looked at them in the courtroom and said, ‘To the family of Daunte Wright. I am so sorry to have brought the death of your son, your father, your brother, your uncle and the rest of your family.

“To your mother Katie, I understand a mother’s love and I’m sorry that I broke your heart. My heart is broken for you all.’

But Katie looked straight at Potter as she told her that she would “never forgive her” and asked Judge Regina Chu not to show any leniency.

“She left our world with so much darkness and sorrow.

“The best way I can explain it is that every day I have that queasy feeling that a mother gets when she realizes her child is missing from a grocery store and you can’t see it, feel it, know if it’s safe . Daunte was only 20. He still had so much of his life ahead of him.

“She hit our little boy in the heart with a single shot and shattered mine. She took his future.’

She added: “I will never be able to forgive you for that. I will never be able to forgive you for what you stole from us.’