Sunny skies today. Highs 5 to 10 north, to mid 20s southeast. Temperatures falling through the day. Snow chances north tonight. Get the latest on Updraft.
Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu (left) swears in former Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter before she testifies in court Friday at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis. Court TV, via AP, pool
Attorneys are expected to make closing arguments Monday in the trial of Kimberly Potter. The former Brooklyn Center police officer is charged in the April shooting death of Daunte Wright.
After jurors hear from prosecutors and defense attorneys for a final time, the group of six men and six women will decide whether to convict Potter of manslaughter.
A week and a half of testimony concluded Friday when the 49-year-old took the stand. Answering questions from lead defense attorney Earl Gray, Potter said she feared for the safety of her colleague — Sgt. Mychal Johnson — who was leaning through Wright’s passenger door trying to grab the gearshift. Another officer was standing on the driver’s side trying to arrest Wright on a firearms warrant when he slipped away and back into his car.
Potter testified that Johnson had a look of fear on his face that she’d never seen before, and Wright had to be stopped.
“We were trying to keep him from driving away. It just… went chaotic… and then… I remember yelling ‘Taser, Taser, Taser,’ and nothing happened. And then he told me I shot him.”
COVID is again raging across the U.S. just as Americans gather for the holidays On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 156,754 new COVID cases. In early November, the country was averaging about 70,000 cases. The jump in cases in recent days is being blamed, in part, on the omicron variant. It's expected to become the dominant strain in the U.S. in the coming weeks.
Police in Moorhead, Minn., say seven people — four adults and three children — were found dead inside a home in the city on Saturday night. The cause of death remains under investigation but authorities said there were no signs of violence or forced entry to the home, and no known threat to the public.
