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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Criminal Justice / Shitty Cops / Ta Da!

Ta Da!

by | 87 Comments

This post is in: 

Little blurry because of the steam:

Ta Da!

And in some good news, another cop was convicted for killing a man for no reason:

Kim Potter, the white former Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright in April, has been convicted after appearing to mistake her handgun for a Taser during a deadly traffic stop.

Potter, 49, was found guilty on Thursday of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter in relation to the April 11 traffic stop that ended with the 20-year-old Black man’s death. The former officer, who resigned from the force after 26 years on the job, now faces 35 years behind bars when she is sentenced on Feb. 18.

Potter briefly lowered her head and closed her eyes as the verdict was read out. As Judge Regina Chu thanked the jury for their sacrifice, calling them “heroes in this case,” Potter silently performed the sign of the cross. One female juror appeared to be crying as the verdict was read, a WCCO reporter in the courtroom said.

Maybe if this keeps up, police across the country will re-evaluate their “kill ’em all and let God sort them out” approach to policing.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  2. 2.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Those with great power (police, prosecutors, drone operators) SHOULD be held to strict, even harsh, justice.

    Kill an innocent? CRUCIFY them.
    They can quit if they don’t like that prospect. The rest of us don’t have that option.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    Has there been a case of a cop getting convicted of murder/manslaughter outside of Minnesota yet? Just curious.

  5. 5.

    Ha Nguyen

    Beef stew always SOUNDS good to me, until I eat it. Then, it’s too bland? Or, something. I prefer chicken stew. Or, ham and beans soup.

  6. 6.

    divF

    I’m about to go make two spaghetti sauces for some friends: pesto (made and frozen last summer) and puttanesca. Makes for seasonal colors.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    One would have thought someone would have designed a totally different taser that felt nothing at all like the handle of a handgun. ??‍♀️

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    @Snarki, child of Loki:

    So much this.  The rules right now hold police officers to a lower standard than they hold ordinary people, which is exactly backward.  They should, as a matter of professional competency, know more about the law and use of force than an ordinary person, so that’s the standard they should be judged by.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @debbie:

    One would have thought someone would have designed a totally different taser that felt nothing at all like the handle of a handgun.

    They did.  Apparently that, and wearing them on opposite sides of the body, doesn’t stop the police from confusing them.  Or at the very least, that doesn’t stop the police from using “I thought it was my taser” as a defense.  Funny that you never, ever hear about a cop accidentally tasing someone who they meant to shoot.

  13. 13.

    Jim Appleton

    This cop explicitly meant to use her taser as a compliance tool, not a “less than lethal” weapon.  She had him mostly incapacitated and wanted to “calm” him the rest of the way, much as her grandparent would have done with a billy club.

    That’s a huge and underappreciated problem with tasers.

    Cops should draw a weapon if and only if they intend to shoot to kill.

  14. 14.

    JaySinWa

    @senyordave: I don’t get the idea that his leaving is a sure sign that T won’t get prosecuted. Vance’s history always made me suspicous. The fact that he seems to be leaving apparently without having scuttled the case gives me more hope that both the city and state have a chance at bringing some justice to T.

  15. 15.

    sab

    @Ha Nguyen: My sister’s mother-in-law moved here from China and watched all kinds of tv cooking shows without understanding much English. She was a wonderful cook, but her beef stew was weird (but delicious.) It looked just like American beef stew, but it had a soy sauce base.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    @Yutsano:

    There’s a trial going on here for a police officer (Adam Coy) who murdered a POC (Andre Hill) for holding a phone in his hand in his family’s garage. There’s another one for the sheriff’s deputy (Jason Meade) who shot another POC (Casey Goodson Jr.) for walking into his family’s home with a bag of sandwiches.

    Both have been indicted, but I can’t tell if trial dates have been set. I know my memory tends toward the iffy, but I believe Coy may have had more complaints filed against him than Chauvin.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @divF:

    The word puttanesca has a colourful etymology, or two.

    From Wikipedia:

    Because “puttana” means roughly “whore” or “prostitute” and puttanesca is an adjective derived from that word, there is a theory that the dish was invented in one of many bordellos in the Naples working-class neighbourhood of Quartieri Spagnoli. Alternatively, food historian Jeremy Parzen suggests the name has more to do with the practical use of “puttanesca” in Italian than with its literal definition: “Italians use puttana (and related words) almost the way we use shit, as an all-purpose profanity, so pasta alla puttanesca might have originated with someone saying, essentially, “I just threw a bunch of shit from the cupboard into a pan.”

    LOL.

  18. 18.

    SpaceUnit

    I don’t think the police officer meant to kill that kid, but I’m convinced that when you put two or more  cops together they start to perform for each other and it can make them lose focus.

    And of course some can be lousy all by themselves.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    YOLO! News from our own moranistan.

    Yolo County, which detected the Sacramento region’s first confirmed case of the COVID-19 omicron variant less than two weeks ago and late last week identified an outbreak of six cases linked to a high school classroom, has discovered 42 additional cases of the highly contagious variant, many of them linked to a different outbreak. The Healthy Davis Together initiative, which tests most positive samples across Yolo County for variants, in a news release Wednesday said it discovered those cases across Davis, El Macero, West Sacramento and Woodland between Dec. 12 and Saturday.

    The prior seven cases had only been found in West Sacramento. An outbreak of at least 16 cases has been linked to “a single workplace holiday party” in Davis, Healthy Davis Together and Yolo County public health officials announced in a joint statement. About 50 people attended the party, officials wrote, and 16 employees contracted the virus either at the party or from “subsequent workplace spread.” Ten of the cases have been confirmed as omicron. Of the 16 cases, all were fully vaccinated and eight had received a booster dose.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article256797732.html#storylink=cpy

  26. 26.

    Dan B

    @Ha Nguyen: I thought that but we have a small butcher near us and the beef has FLAVOR!  And I thought my taste buds were failing.  Plus I sneak in a bit of Red Boat fish sauce and a smoked sweet paprika.

    I never tell any guests about the fish sauce addition.

  27. 27.

    sab

    We just had a police killing. Extremely rare here. Guy broke into his ex-wife’s house, held her at knifepoint and taser didn’t stop him so they shot him.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    John, that beef stew looks glorious! Can hardly wait until Saturday when I will have my own version for Christmas dinner.

  29. 29.

    Ohio Mom

    Let’s also remember that tasers can kill people — the electricity can screw up the heart’s rhythm. They are not as benign as their boosters would like you to believe.

  31. 31.

    sab

    @Dan B: OT Did you see the national news about Akron bridge being stolen and hauled off to Medina County? Guy who stole it was from Wadsworth, and hired a crane company to haul it, since 58′ bridge won’t fit in just any old truck.

  32. 32.

    Yutsano

    @SiubhanDuinne: Lidia Bastianich recently did a recipe on her YouTube channel that I thought looked awfully familiar. It was indeed pasta puttanesca! But she wasn’t about to spread that word on her channel! I have to remember what she called it now. I’m about to leave work for physio so I’ll try to look it up later.

  34. 34.

    germy

    A twitter thread about something I’ve wondered about:

    Who is behind Explore Talent, whose alumn include Boebert, MTG, Scott Pressler, Candace Owens, Cassandra Fairbanks. How did so many far right ‘actors’ make their way into government and become influencers with millions of followers? I’m a Producer, did they cast this reality show

    — Sandi Bachom (@sandibachom) December 23, 2021

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    They are different and that would make them feel different. By quite a bit. They are not as heavy as a fully loaded pistol either. And made out of plastic. And worn on the other side of the body from the projectile weapon. One might forget that last part in a severe stress situation. But at that point they’d likely be wanting to pull out the projectile weapon. If someone’s been on the force that long and can’t remember which weapon they are employing, either they are senile – or worse.

  42. 42.

    germy

    I didn’t know that relatives of Emmett Till were with Daunte Wright’s family during the Kim Potter trial.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MagdaInBlack:

    It definitely deserves investigation. Journalistic, I mean, not prosecutorial — at least, not yet. There’s some deep dark money here, and I’d love to see someone like WaPo’s David Fahrenthold tackle this story and see what he can unearth.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    @sab: I missed the Akron / Wadsworth link.  And we thought Flaridah man was weird…

    FYI My brother has fond memories of Wadsworth (and Arkansas).  He took his girlfriend to Wadsworth to the high school and our house in Clearview Acres three miles south.  The architect designed passive solar house was the most run down of any house.  I wondered if it was opioids or meth.  I don’t believe the girlfriend was impressed but she grew up in Detroit and they didn’t visit Detroit.  One level head in that pair.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @JaySinWa: A December 14 Washington Post article indicates that the Manhattan DA’s office is still actively working on the Trump case. David Farenthold and three others reported that Mazars accountant Donald Bender had recently testified for hours before a grand jury. They also wrote that former Deutcbe Bank official Rosemary Vrablic had been interviewed by Manhattan County prosecutors. “Bender and Vrablic were never Trump employees,” the authors noted, “but they have better knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump organization than many employees.”

    Given Vance’s history, it’s easy to be cynical about his efforts. But I think it took until this year for his office to finally obtain Trump’s business and tax records. We’ll find out in a couple months if Vance has been sandbagging the investigation, or letting his staff wrap Trump up tight with criminal charges that the new Manhattan DA will prosecute.

  49. 49.

    Gvg

    @Dan B: My sister is allergic to shellfish. Look the ingredients over carefully. Frankly, I think you should always tell people. Allergies are surprising, varied and sometimes deadly. Sister doesn’t eat anything from a seafood place anymore as even iced tea from a fish shop effected her once. Cross contamination is actually hard to avoid.

    I know you are just thinking of the pleasure of good food, but don’t sneak things into people.

  52. 52.

    Lyrebird

    @germy: Thanks for linking that.

    ETA: They spoke out to protest the foot-dragging on seeking justice for Ahmaud Arbery.

    Please Flying Spaghetti Monster let them not need to comfort any other parents of essentially lynched kids.  Please soon in our day.

  53. 53.

    MagdaInBlack

    @germy: Did you follow any of the threads within the threads? It’s pretty interesting, however questionable it may be. Some stuff about Eric Prince and Leonard Leo

    Also Knights of Malta and how Eric thinks hes a modern day Templar. I was waiting for Illuminati to make an appearance, but they did not

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    No idea. It would seem to be right up his street. But someone like Jane Mayer would also be good. There are probably a number of good investigative reporters out there who could run with this.

  55. 55.

    cope

    All that bowl of stew needs is a slab if crispy garlic bread for texture and dunking.  I hope it was as tasty as it looks.

  58. 58.

    Ohio Mom

    @Gvg: A friend’s sister reacted to her calcium supplement. She knew she was terribly allergic to shellfish and did not realize the “natural” supplement she chose was made of ground shells. Oops.

  62. 62.

    Dan B

    @Gvg: I know our guests preferences and allergies.  We have a small circle of friends.  I’m lactose and cow’s milk protein intolerant.  My brother’s girlfriend is gluten intolerant. My nephew’s husband is vegetarian.  It makes for interesting family gatherings.  I vaguely remember an acquaintance who had a shellfish allergy and had a client years ago whose son was allergic to peanuts.  Those are much more scary than the family’s intolerances.  Ours cause major discomfort but are not life threatening

    And I’m not “just thinking about deliciousness”.  Health and well being are important.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    @Gvg:

    This.  One of my sisters is extremely allergic to seafood and we’d be calling 911 if someone snuck fish oil into her food.  It would be bad.  I was with her when she had her first reaction to it and she very easily could have died.  It was awful.  She developed the allergy in adulthood and it is a severe one.  It made working as a restaurant/yacht club manager for forty years a real challenge, especially when she lived in Florida.

  64. 64.

    Chetan Murthy

    Oskar Grant’s murderer did the same: reached for his taser, came up with his gun, shot him.  The shit was straddling Grant’s chest (Grant was on his back on the ground), so it was a point-blank shooting.

    Shitbird got away with serving his (short) sentence in the San Diego County jail, IIRC.

  66. 66.

    Starfish

    I am allergic to shellfish and have a child allergic to four of the top eight food allergens. It makes figuring out travel plans a challenge.

    I have experienced a bit of cross-contamination at seafood places. The thing with the iced tea seems weird though. Are they not washing their cups?

    I have been allergic to french fries from a po-boy place.

    I did not realize until adulthood that sometimes cross-contamination happen in the fryers so “Is the French fry fryer cooking just French fries or are you frying onions, mozzarella sticks, etc. in it?”

  67. 67.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish:  A friend of mine has a little guy who has devastating food allergies. She got him enrolled at this place in Long Beach, CA, and they just started the program. Apparently he’s already having success. They have to travel each time, but it is worth it. She is hoping that he will be able to attend school one day.

  68. 68.

    Arclite

    If the cop that shot Daunte had been a man, there would have been no charges filed. Just sayin’

  69. 69.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: Is he very little?

    The youngest kids have the most success with OIT and the like, but the drop out rate for those programs is still over 50%.

    My son did okay in school, but we eased into it, going to co-op preschool a couple of times a week, where I was present once every month or two helping

    The doctor at the place in Long Beach is claiming an unusually high amount of success.

  72. 72.

    Victor Matheson

    No one could watch the video of the aftermath of Daunte Wright shooting and think Kim Potter meant to shoot him. It was totally an accident. No way in a million years it was murder.

    That being said, she was a trained officer and she just can’t be making that mistake. And her mistake led to Wright being killed for nothing. Accidental killings without malice, basically the definition of manslaughter, still leave someone dead who should have still be alive. Without question there was negligence involved. Seems like the right result here, although tragic for everyone.

    You can make an argument that Wright shouldn’t have even been tazed in this situation, but I didn’t watch the case closely enough to be able to tell.

  73. 73.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: ?One of my son’s friends was like that. When he was very little, he would react to being in places that had served cake the day before. A lot of them will outgrow some of it at some point. (My son was allergic to more things when he was smaller.)

  74. 74.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Seems like many little kids are allergic to “foods with strange names”.

     

    Most of them grow out of it, though.

  75. 75.

    randy khan

    The stew looks excellent.  And the recipe reminded me of how I make pot roast – no precise amounts, big hunks of veg.  I should try stew sometime soon.

  76. 76.

    jonas

    @Ruckus: If someone’s been on the force that long and can’t remember which weapon they are employing, either they are senile – or worse.

    Yeah, she tried to blame it on poor/non-existent training. But if you knew you weren’t trained adequately to use the device, why were you carrying it/using it? It’s kind of like a lifeguard claiming after someone drowns on their watch that they never actually had any formal training on how to rescue someone in a pool. Ok, but then what were you doing lifeguarding?

  77. 77.

    jonas

    @Chetan Murthy: The Oskar Grant killing was *way* more egregious than Daunte Wright’s shooting, imho. Grant was on the ground, subdued, not resisting and the cop just fucking executed him at point blank range and then later claimed “oh, yeah, I, um thought I was tasing him or something.” Wright, for whatever reason, was acting edgy and dove back into his car and tried to resist arrest. I think it was a tragic accident, but one that Potter still needs to answer for in some way. Cops have authority to use lethal force and when they fuck up, there need to be consequences. With great power comes great responsibility, as they say.

  78. 78.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @germy: There’s been a couple lengthy threads I’ve seen on Twitter from people looking into this — although I can’t remember offhand where I saw them.

    One in particular focused on a set of protesters in L.A. who show up at all the anti-vax, pro-Trump, etc. demonstrations. Like five days a week. All of them were failed/barely working actors and comedians, who didn’t seem to have any clear source of income (i.e. no other jobs that the Twitter investigator could find). I believe a number of them were associated with Explore Talent.

  79. 79.

    jonas

    @JaySinWa: The problem is Vance and his whole office knows that if they prosecute the Trumps, there are 100 other crooked real estate tycoons in NYC who have done the same shit, maybe even on a grander scale in some instances. So where do you begin? That’s why Trump got away with his scammy, grifting shit for so long — everyone does it and everyone knows it, including the feds, the DAs, everybody.

  80. 80.

    TriassicSands

    @Roger Moore:

    I agree that police officers need a higher standard and also a very different one than is currently in place. However, with all the horrible instances of police brutality and murder, this case seemed to me to be one of gross incompetence rather than the more typical “I”ll kill ’em because I can and no one will do anything to me as long as I say I feared for my life.” It will be interesting to see what her sentence is given how many (mostly male) murderers have gotten off without even being charged.

    She took a life unnecessarily in a situation that didn’t call for even the use of a taser. But my impression is that she panicked, overreacted, and escalated the use of force beyond what was needed. It seemed clear that despite all her years as a police officer, she really wasn’t fit to carry weapons.

    I haven’t seen any of the trial and I’ve never heard her discuss the incident or explain her actions. Hearing her might change my mind.

    It’s definitely good that she’s not a police officer anymore. One down, how many to go?

  81. 81.

    leeleeFL

    @debbie: One would have thought she would embrace her crime instead of pretending it was a mistake.  Sorry, that excuse was pure BS.  Just like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Benezir Bhutto, she was trying to show the good ole boys she was just as “bad” as them!  Amazing how two of those three died by the gun.  Maggie was just assassinated much more politely!  Just as destroyed though, eh?

  85. 85.

    brantl

    @debbie: @debbie: 

    One would have thought someone would have designed a totally different taser that felt nothing at all like the handle of a handgun.

    Ain’t that the fucking truth!

  86. 86.

    brantl

    @debbie: @debbie:

    One would have thought someone would have designed a totally different taser that felt nothing at all like the handle of a handgun.

    Ain’t that the fucking truth!

    @sab: Try oyster sauce and soy sauce in a pot roast.

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