Officer Kimberly Ann Potter was found guilty of manslaughter today for killing Daunte Wright earlier this year. The verdict is merely a consolation prize for the Wright family whose son in our opinion was murdered, but prosecutors did not charge Potter with murder even though she was caught on camera removing her gun from her holster voluntarily and of her own free will before shooting Wright voluntarily and of her own free will. She saved herself from a murder charge by yelling "taser taser taser" before shooting Wright and claiming afterwards to have mistaking her gun for her taser. An acquittal would have set a dangerous precedent capable of allowing cops to get away with killing anyone simply by yelling "taser" and calling it an accident.
You can see Potter's stone cold emotionless reaction to the verdict in the video below. That reaction is a far cry from the river of tears she secreted on the stand last week when she obviously thought good acting might keep her out of prison (https://copblaster.com/blast/46706/kim-potter-torpedoes-acting-career-with-testimony). The Minnesota sentencing guidelines recommend a little over 7 years in prison for Potter. Potter has no prior criminal history, but the law considers killing people serious enough to almost always require some type of prison term even if the court holds that the killing was "accidental." We hope that Potter is punished to the fullest extent of the law.
The court will no doubt consider her history as a law enforcement officer when imposing her sentence. The court will likely view every day of her career leading up to the crime favorably and be inclined to grant her leniency for it. That leniency is due in part to knowledge of how cops are treated in prison by their fellow convicts even though the law does not permit using that as the basis for a departure. Judge Regina Chu will likely consider the fact that prison will be a lonely and dangerous place for Potter. Female convicts hate cops just as much as men do. Since Potter was convicted of a violent offense she should be sent to at least a medium security prison. Medium security prisons consist primarily of younger violent offenders that are in for stuff like robbery, assault, and manslaughter. Those inmates will target Potter. Depending on the politics of the yard she could be killed, stabbed, beat up, run off, or made to pay rent. That last one involves paying a gang money for protection so that she can walk in general population without being killed, stabbed, beat up, or run off. The latter would involve telling Potter to request protective custody (PC) status from the staff to avoid getting attacked. If she doesn't "check in" to PC as directed she will be attacked by 2 or more convicts in plain view of the staff to make it clear that she is not welcome. When an inmate is smashed off the yard in plain view of staff like that they are automatically placed in PC. The staff will know who Potter is when they get there and would likely consider it negligent to put her in general population in the first place, so she will probably be put in PC by the staff until they can think of a place to send her where she might be safe. If Minnesota has PC yards they will probably send her to one of those. PC yards are full of sex offenders, gang drop outs, dope debtors, snitches, and sometimes even cops. However, even PC cases hate cops for the most part and there is a good chance of her getting stabbed by a lifer in PC.
There is a good chance that Potter will be placed in solitary confinement with a keep separate on all other inmates. That will require that she be housed in a segregation unit known as a "hole" which is primarily used for disciplinary reasons, but is also used for PC cases that are not safe in general population at that prison. Life as a PC case in the hole is pretty much the same as being in disciplinary segregation the entire time with the added benefit of a small amount of commissary. That commissary is much less than general population inmates enjoy and only slightly more than inmates on disciplinary status enjoy. The main difference being that she might be able to order about $20 worth of candy a week. She will not be able to have contact visits with anyone other than lawyers while housed in segregation, but she will be able to have video visits on the weekends and make a phone call once per month. She might also be able to access the law library once a week if the staff feel like doing their jobs and actually taking her there. The rest of her time will be spent under 23 hour lockdown with one hour out of her cell each day. While in her cell she might have a radio if she is lucky. Normally, segregation inmates also have access to coffee, tobacco, and drugs, but that requires someone in general population to send it back there and hook people up. PC cases are not hooked up under any circumstances and are forced to do their time sober.
The previous analysis of what life will be like in prison for Kim Potter was based primarily on personal experience. This author is a former federal convict. I am basing my predictions on time I spent at the United States Penitentiary in Victorville, California (USP Victorville), the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Oregon (FCI Sheridan), and local county jails where I heard stories of what state prisons are like while I was in pre-trial detention. It sounds like the politics of state prisons are similar to the feds with the exception of "rent" which federal inmates do not allow. In the feds someone is either good or no good and if they're no good they're not allowed in general population period with no option to pay protection money. This author spent a great deal of time in the hole for disciplinary reasons and witnessed first hand how someone like Potter will be treated. There is a good chance that if Potter is not placed in PC that someone doing 20 to life will take it upon themselves to seek true justice for Daunte Wright.