Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Kim Potter, the former suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she confused her handgun for her Taser when she fatally shot Daunte Wright, was sentenced Friday to two years in prison. Wright’s family denounced the sentence as too lenient and accused the judge of giving more consideration to the white officer than the Black victim.

Potter was convicted in December of first- and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11 killing of Wright, a 20-year-old Black motorist. She was sentenced only on the more serious charge in accordance with state law.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The former suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she confused her handgun for her Taser when she killed Daunte Wright will be sentenced Friday for manslaughter.

Kim Potter was convicted in December of both first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11 killing of Wright, a 20-year-old Black motorist. She’ll be sentenced only on the most serious charge of first-degree murder, which carries a presumptive penalty of just over seven years in prison.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minneapolis police officer who oversaw medical training for two of the three former officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights was scheduled to resume testifying in their federal trial Tuesday about what they were taught.

Officer Nicole Mackenzie, the department’s medical support coordinator, testified Monday that J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane were in a police academy “emergency medical responder” class that she taught, which covered first aid, ethics in care and how to hand people off to paramedics.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A caravan of vehicles drove through Minneapolis demanding justice in the death of Amir Locke, the 22-year old Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police as officers served a no-knock search warrant.

Sunday’s caravan of about 50 vehicles was organized by the Racial Justice Network and other police accountability groups.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will join the review of the fatal shooting of a Black man by Minneapolis police, authorities said Friday, shortly after police released body camera footage that showed SWAT team officers entering an apartment and shooting the 22-year-old man, who was wrapped in a blanket and had a gun in his hand.

Amir Locke was killed in the shooting just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Police said Locke pointed a loaded gun “in the direction of officers.” An incident report said he had two wounds in the chest and one in the right wrist.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s rights was abruptly suspended Wednesday after one of the defendants tested positive for COVID-19.

Judge Paul Magnuson said the trial won’t resume until Monday.

The officer who tested positive wasn’t named by the court, but reporters in the courtroom said J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were there and Thomas Lane was not. Lane’s attorney didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The chief medical examiner who ruled George Floyd’s death a homicide will return to the stand Tuesday at the trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating Floyd’s civil rights.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Evidence about Minneapolis Police Department policies and training is expected to be the focus as testimony resumes for a second week in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A paramedic who treated George Floyd on the day he was killed testified Wednesday at the federal civil rights trial of three former Minneapolis police officers that he wasn’t told Floyd wasn’t breathing and had no pulse when officers upgraded the urgency of an ambulance call.

Derek Smith said that after he arrived on May 25, 2020, he could not find a pulse in Floyd’s neck and that the Black man’s pupils were large, indicating that “the patient was probably deceased.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Witness testimony will get underway in earnest Tuesday at the federal civil rights trial of three former Minneapolis police officers accused of failing to intervene as fellow Officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd by pressing his knee into the Black man’s neck as he lay facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air.