Kim Patter murdered my son, and he died April 11,
today the justice system murdered him all over again.
>> That is the mother of Dante Wright who was killed by Minneapolis police officer
Kim Potter.
When Kim Potter says she intended to tase him, but used the wrong weapon and
Daunte Wright ended up dying.
She was sentenced,
finally today to two years in prison of which she might not spend the entirety,
and we're going to talk about why exactly the sentence ended up being so low.
To catch you up though, she was originally convicted back in December for first
degree and second degree manslaughter in the April 1th killing of Wright.
Who was pulled over for having expired license plate tags, and
an air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror.
Officers learned he had an outstanding warrant for weapons possession charge,
and he pulled away as they tried to arrest him.
Video shows that Potter shouted several times that she was going to tase him,
but she had her actual firearm in her hand, and fired one shot into his chest.
Now, that brings us to the actual sentencing, and the judge in this case,
who apparently really wanted to focus on empathy for the police officer.
Here is a little bit of that.
>> It is the sentence and judgment of this court,
that you shall be committed to the custody of the commissioner
of corrections for a period of 24 months.
You shall serve two thirds of that time, or
16 months in prison, and a third on supervised release,
assuming no disciplinary offenses.
I recognize there will be those who disagree with the sentence,
that I granted a significant downward departure,
does not in any way diminish Daunte Wrights life.
Please try to empathize with Ms Potter's situation.
As President Barack Obama once said,
learning to stand and somebody else's shoes,
to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins.
>> So as is alluded to there by judge too, it is obviously not a very lengthy
sentence, and she and the defense lawyers fairly working in tandem.
There will try to make a case for why that should be the case,
why we should not be frustrated by that.
But again, bear in mind two years of which only 16 months
necessarily will be served, assuming good behavior.
And by the way, in Minnesota, the ranges for
the most serious offense that she was convicted for,
ranged from six years to about eight and a half years.
Judges are not supposed to be able to go significantly below that without
like a real good reason effectively.
And she believes that exists, the judge does.
We will get into some of the arguments that were made there, but
I want to give the panel an opportunity to weigh in.
>> Okay, so, let's go through a couple of numbers here.
She's already served 58 days, it's about two months.
So she'll be out in a little over a year, that's it.
Daunte Wright on the other hand, will remain deceased, and so
that's the thing about murder, it's permanent.
And so she was convicted, this is almost jury nullification by the judge saying,
I don't care what the jury said, I like the cop.
So a lot of black men have gone before judges in this country, and
the judges have said, well, there's nothing I could do.
It's the minimum sentence, minimum sentence,
there's nothing I could do even if I wanted to do it.
And oftentimes they get way more than the minimum sentence.
Well, apparently there was something they could do, apparently if it's a white cop,
you just ignore the minimum, who cares?
Over six years, that's the least she's supposed to get, the average by the way,
is about seven years.
She was like, I don't care, I don't care, I'm just gonna give her less,
I like her, I empathize with her.
So Daunte Wright, we empathize with apparently a little less.
So all that talk of empathy and then quoting Barack Obama, that nice touch.
Even Joy Reid noted conservative Democrat was like,
don't quote Obama here, you should have quoted Martin Luther King.
When Joy Reid's telling you not to quote Barack Obama, something is really amiss.
Okay, so yeah, I mean, but which way does
the empathy slide in your slippery slope of empathy?
And so now the one more number for you guys,
there's a potential Biden Supreme Court nominee, Michelle Childs,
all the conservative Democrats and all the Republicans are pushing for her of course.
So once she's incredibly corporate friendly, that's obviously why they love
her, and I'm so worried to death that Biden's gonna pick her.
But a story broke today, coincidentally, that she's also really tough on crime.
So she had given a guy who sold eight ounces of weed,
eight ounces, 12 years in prison.
So that guy is getting 12 years in prison,
Kim Potter who killed Daunte Wright, is going to get a little over a year.
>> Insane, and you're exactly right.
I mean look, this judge said that this was one of the quotes,
saddest cases that she'd ever had to rule on.
And mind you, given what she did, we just heard her say, that's not sad because
Daunte Wright is no longer alive, and his children have to grow up without a father,
and his mother has to grow up without a son.
That's not what she means, she means because she's only seeing this from
the cops perspective, that's why it's sad.
And yet, Jake my guess,
is that this judge is also sentenced nonviolent drug offenders for
four more years, than two years for taking someone's life for the possession
of a small amount of illicit substances, like I know that to be true.
This judge has worked on the bench for 20 years.
Okay, but let's put ourselves in the shoes of this police officer.
This police officer was a veteran of 26 years working for
the Police Department, 26 years and
still didn't know the difference between their taser and their gun.
I don't even know how that works,
I wouldn't even understand that because after 26 years of being on the job, and
you still don't know in a moment of sort of heightened tensions.
Because yeah,
this big old criminal has an air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror.
That is a sign of a cold blooded killer, what?
I don't even know where to begin to put myself in someone's shoes like that.
>> Yeah, and I think you can accurately say that every part of this is sad.
I can even try to imagine after having done it, how you would feel,
that does not mean that you should not spend quite a bit of time behind bars.
And we'll get into the different reasons why that might be justified.
They addressed that actually, but I really fast,
I want to talk about what the two sides have been pushing for.
The prosecutor had said, anything less than four years would be unacceptable.
Obviously, we don't get anything near that.
The defense had been pushing for a sentence of probation only,
no time behind bars, and the reason was that this is beyond tragic,
it's unintentional, It was an accident, it was a mistake.
And the defense attorney held up a box of letters and cards of support.
What does that have to do?
Like does that,
how many cards need to be piled in a box before he comes back to life?
Like it's great that she's getting support,
what does that have to do with the consequences of her action?
And the expectations we should have for cops that they should take seriously,
whether they're using a weapon that is potentially able to kill someone,
because of course these less lethal weapons are, or
that is almost guaranteed to kill someone.
Should they take it seriously?
Should other cops be really sure before they pull the trigger on whatever weapon
it is that they happen to draw.
They're not sure, just one of them.
Anyway, the judge says, that there's mitigating factors,
it was undisputed that Potter never intended to use their gun.
Well she drew it, again.
Like you could be really cool,
if you're really the most important thing to you is to not fire a gun.
There were some other measures that she could have taken, but she felt like she
had to tase him, had to, can't let him get away after all that would be inconvenient.
We would have to follow him, anyway, Chu says that there's four reasons for
incarceration, retribution and incapacitation,
deterrence and rehabilitation,
saying retribution would be the only purpose served in Potter's case.
How is that true, how is that accurate?
There's no deterrent to telling other cops, hey, it's not just like you roll
the die when you draw one of the weapons from your belt,
maybe you should be sure of which one it is.
There's no rehabilitation,
no extra time to think seriously about the power that you wield over life and
death, and how careful you should be when potentially meeting it out.
I don't know. Look, the judge in this case obviously had
a side that they were on, and they have all the power in this case.
So what do you know they want?
>> Yeah, to me the rehabilitation things stuck out,
because in the judge's mind cops are perfect anyway.
So why would they have to be rehabilitated?
It's just an honest mistake, and so somebody's dead, but
he wasn't perfect, cops are always perfect.
They don't need to turns, they don't need rehabilitation.
And guys, if you're young, you don't get it, you're right.
But what you're missing is, the older generation got and I'm in that older
generation, we all got brainwashed into thinking that cops are angels.
I'm not joking at all, I'm not exaggerating, every program I ever saw TV,
movie, news, local news, national news, print news, video news, it doesn't matter.
Everything I had ever seen told me, cops are perfect, cops never lie.
They're always telling the truth on the stand, and the defendant is always lying.
So I actually believe that when I was a kid, I did, it took me a long time to
get past that there would be cases, there would be overwhelming
evidence that the cop planted something on the scene, and I wouldn't believe it.
Because it was cognitive dissonance, because I had been culturally brainwashed
into thinking that cops were angels on earth.
I remember when I said Cuban NWA came out with the songs about the police,
I was like, whoa, they really are gangster rappers.
I mean only gangsters would say terrible things about, look,
I grew up in a nice several.
I had no freaking idea, okay?
I like the music, but I didn't understand it until later, okay?
So this is a judge from the old school thinks,
I mean an angel dropped down on earth and made a simple mistake.
What are we going to really apply the lauder, right?
Sympathy for Daunte Wright, who's dead, well, I'll get around to it maybe,
although I didn't really talk about it here.
So look, the last couple of things, you have to understand for,
she got convicted of first and second nd degree manslaughter.
Those are really serious charges, okay?
And the judge basically told the jury, I don't care,
I don't care about all the work that you did.
I mean it's so hard because of that programming,
to get a jury to ever say a cop is wrong in the first place,
they do it in this case and the judge goes, I don't care, don't care.
So look, for all the conservative by the way, look a lot, I get that people
sympathize with Potter, I get that a lot of people think it was an honest mistake.
I understand that, right?
But someone's dead anyway, right?
And it takes there's nothing like a gun, and so it's really weird, okay,
find outrageous mistake.
But that's the point John is making,
that we have to make sure that cops understand it's not a no big deal.
I made a mistake, he's dead, who cares, right?
No, it's the guy, his life is gone, he cannot bring him back,
we cannot bring them back.
So a lot of people wrote in letters, who cares,
a lot of people wrote in letters from Rittenhouse, but honestly a lot of
people wrote in letters for OJ Simpson, that doesn't matter at all.
And those letters are irrelevant, the jury is relevant, how many times
have we been told, no the only people that matter is the jury sequester them.
Everybody else's public opinion is irrelevant, or
everybody thinks that George Zimmerman did it, who cares?
It's irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, jury acquitted him, too late, okay?
And same thing with Rittenhouse.
Now, the same, people saying jury is the only thing that matters when it's written
House George Zimmerman who gets off, now turn around and go.
No, no, jury is irrelevant, but I thought you said it was the only relevant thing.
Now you're saying it's irrelevant, and we should let the cop off.
>> Anyway, gee, I wonder if you're biased.
>> I just have to put this in a broader context of how sad it is that we don't
have real leadership, when it comes to the most massive movement.
Social movement that I think I've ever seen in my lifetime,
which is the black Lives Matter in the streets movement.
Sorry, it didn't come in a nice cute little letter on beautiful
stationery to put in your box that you could hold up in front of everybody.
Young people took the goddamn streets, okay?
They were out there for months and months and months, and
were thusly terrorized and cars driven into them, etcetera.
And yet is any Democrat, is any leading Democrat taking up that mantle, or
are you using the idea that defund the police somehow hurt the Democrats to your
political advantage?
Yeah, it's the latter.
Meanwhile, qualified immunity rolls on, and criminals inside the police force and
justice system, are allowed to keep on committing this.
And the last thing I'll say is Jake, you're totally right.
People who have positive views of the police,
live in communities where there are no police.
Of course you like police, when you are privileged,
you don't ever interact with them, you only call them when you need it.
They don't parole your streets, they don't enforce curfews,
they don't treat you like you are a foreign country that they are occupying.
Of course you like police, and of course this is what we're all working against.
>> Yeah, I did an interview with DJ in LA.
He's Latino, he actually grew up partly in LA, partly in Arizona.
He said it was worse than Arizona, I've told this story before.
He's the cops would come and slam them against the fence, when they
were playing basketball or walking home from school three times a week.
and he had to carry his report card with straight A's in it,
in his backpack to show the cops that they shouldn't beat him up too much, okay?
I never had to deal with that, I'm a minority but
I grew up in a relatively nice suburb.
That to us would have been insane, and heard of.
And if they had done that to one kid in that suburb,
it would have been probably a national story.
They do it to minorities all the time, and the people in power including this judge.
Now today basically saying, I don't care.
All I care about is the cops feelings and not your feelings,
and by the way also not your death.