Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Prosecution Cross-Examines Kim Potter in Her Trial for the Killing of Daunte Wright; Potter Breaks Down on Stand Testifying about Killing of Daunte Wright; "Non-Credible" Threat on TikTok Puts Schools on Alert. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 17, 2021 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

ERIN ELDRIDGE, HENNEPIN COUNTY ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: At 1:48, do you see yourself here taking a piece of paper in your left hand?

KIMBERLY POTTER, FORMER BROOKLYN CENTER POLICE OFFICER CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: Right.

Now advancing to 2:01:49, please.

Stopping there.

You see you transferred the paper to your right hand?

POTTER: It looks like it.

ELDRIDGE: Advance it a little further, please.

OK. You would agree that the piece of paper at 2:01:49 is in your right hand?

POTTER: I don't know where it is.

ELDRIDGE: Is that the piece of paper right here?

POTTER: That's a piece of paper.

ELDRIDGE: Let's advance a couple more frames, please.

Stop it right there.

Would you agree in this frame at 2:01:49 that the peeves paper in is your right hand?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And if we could, play -- stopping at 2:01:54, please.

(VIDEO CLIP)

ELDRIDGE: OK, and then if we could advance a few frames, please. At this point, the -- the paper is in your right hand, correct?

POTTER: It appears that way.

ELDRIDGE: And then at 2:01:55 -- you can stop right there -- you just transferred the paper back to her left hand, correct?

POTTER: That's what the video shows.

ELDRIDGE: OK.

And then if we could advance a few more frames, please. To 2:01:56. A couple more frames, please.

ELDRIDGE: You would agree, at 2:01:56, the piece of paper is still in your left hand, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: OK. Let's advance -- actually let's play until 2:02:01, please.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: I'm going to tase you! Taser, taser, taser!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELDRIDGE: OK, so stopping at 2:02:01, you have the firearm in your right hand, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And you're pointing it directly at Mr. Wright?

POTTER: Correct.

EARL GRAY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Excuse me, Your Honor. Could we have a break. My client is --

(CROSSTALK)

REGINA CHU, HENNEPIN COUNTY JUDGE: OK.

Miss Potter, do you need to take a break?

OK.

OK. Members of the jury, we'll take a break for lunch. And we'll start up again at 1:30, OK?

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: OK, a break in the trial now for Kim Potter, former officer who is on trial for manslaughter in the killing of Daunte Wright, an unarmed black man during a traffic stop.

Let's go bring back Laura Coates, former federal prosecutor. She's a CNN senior legal analyst. And we also have Joey Jackson with us, a CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney.

Joey, let me start with you because you are a defense attorney. Do you think Potter has helped or hurt her defense today?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I certainly think she has significant problems, Ana, -- good with you and Laura -- and they are just built into the nature of the case.

Let's talk about the positives first with respect to how she helped.

She was there from a defense perspective to humanize herself. This is a person who has been an officer for 26 years. This was her lifelong dream.

Her husband is in the audience. His name is Jeff. She has two sons. One of them is in military service.

She feels so bad about this she quit, at the end of the day, because she couldn't take it. Didn't want to put the police department through anything. Left the state, in fact, where she no longer is a resident.

And that resonates. That's important to show, you know what, I feel horrible about this. And that was one of the reasons she did it.

And the other thing I think is to explain the basis of the stop. We know that it involved, what, some air freshener, right?

So she had to make clear, this was not my decision. I was a field training officer. It was the person I was working for and I simply backed him up as a result. I wasn't looking to give anyone a hard time.

Last point. That's her state of mind. She got this warrant and she understood, based on the warrant, that it was a warrant also relating to weapons. There was an issue relating to order of protection.

So all of those things are good to justify and explain.

The built-in problem now becomes the cross-examination. And really the prosecution, Ana, is taking her to task.

You're an officer for 26 years. You may not have had to deploy your taser but certainly you pulled it out. You know where your taser belongs. You've been trained on this before.

[13:35:04]

Not only are you trained on this but you do the training with respect to that. And even though you haven't had to use it, nor your firearm, you know where each one belongs.

You know the design distinctions between the two. You know the weight, although she wouldn't admit it, the discrepancies between the two, and you know better.

So with the prosecution really taking her to task on that, what's the end game? The end game is to demonstrate that you were negligent, right?

Remember, this is not about intent. No one is saying she meant to kill Daunte Wright. What they are saying, the prosecution, is that you were reckless with respect to making that mistake.

And, by the way, isn't part of your training in real-life situations that really mirror stress, such that the stressful events would get you ready for real life?

And in the event that you weren't ready, isn't that an approximate and isn't that a problem based upon your inactions or actions and no one else's?

So I think, based upon that, Ana, really given what we're seeing here, with the reckless charge and with the negligent charge, it's really a built-in problem that the defense has here.

CABRERA: Laura, when we were in the earlier break, you started to talk about how it is good for the jury to hear her side of the story in her own words.

And they are in a lunch break now, taking a break. Because she got real emotional, she needed a break. Obviously, it's around lunchtime there.

There was another moment where she got very emotional during her testimony. I want to play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POTTER: We were struggling -- we were trying to keep him from driving away. It's just -- it just went chaotic.

And then I remember yelling "taser, taser, taser," and nothing happened and then he told me I shot him.

(CRYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Laura, what do you think is the impact of that emotional moment and the connection perhaps that she makes with the jury in a moment like that?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is very compelling to think that she's not at all just a hardened murderer or somebody who is nonchalant about the death of somebody else's child.

I mean, we've already heard from Daunte Wright's mother. We can imagine what that was like for her to have the phone call from her son. And then the next phone call she receives is one that her son has been shot and killed by a police officer.

So it is impactful to see that there's a human being and not a robot on that stand. The difference, however, is the prosecution is not suggesting that

this was intentional. There's not been a suggestion by the prosecution, nor the defense, that this was somehow an intentional calculated act.

And in Minnesota, you need not require intent for the charges that you're talking about.

One is premised on the idea of a reckless handling of a firearm. This is not somebody who is a layman. This is not somebody who is not accustomed to handling a fire.

It's not someone, by the way, as an ordinary person, who would get a benefit of the doubt, like a police officer would, making split-second decisions. How often have we've heard this in a turn of phrase?

The key here, of course, is whether it was foreseeable that she could cause serious bodily harm, let alone death.

The most significant evidence we've seen today was the comparison photo, Ana, between what the taser looked like and the gun, the color, the weight, the size of it, which part of your body you're supposed to have.

In fact, she had drawn her taser on multiple occasions, even if she hadn't deployed it.

The question here for the jurors are, even if she is sympathetic, even if she is somebody who is obviously emotional about having taken another human being's life, was she reckless? Was it foreseeable?

Did she not guard against the risk that the use of the wrong weapon, the firearm rather than the taser, makes it criminally culpable, culpable negligence? That's what the jury is looking at.

At no point -- I think the prosecutor is very smart here not to try to home in and say, a-ha, this is someone who had it out for Daunte Wright. That's not what the evidence seems to show, nor what her statements have been, nor what the law actually requires.

And we're seeing a theme here, right? A number of cases we've seen in times. where the defendant has taken the stand in his or her own defense now, and there's been an emotional thread in terms of it.

At the end of the day, this case is distinct because intent is not a calculation of the prosecution.

CABRERA: Let's play that moment when you talked about the taser and the gun being very different, including how they function, how you weaponize them in terms of the different settings that they have.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELDRIDGE: The taser is on and armed, it beeps, right? [13:40:02]

POTTER: I don't know if it beeps.

ELDRIDGE: Is there a display screen that turns on?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And then there's two lasers on the taser seven that appear on your target, right?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And a green one for the top row?

POTTER: I believe so. It was a new taser.

ELDRIDGE: And a red one for the bottom?

POTTER: I would guess so, yes.

ELDRIDGE: You were trained on it, right?

POTTER: Yes, but it was a while back.

(CROSSTALK)

POTTER: You were trained in March of this year on that taser, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And you have to successfully operate and handle that taser in order to be certified to use it, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And you went through that hands-on process of turning on that taser and safely handling that taser in order to be certified, correct?

POTTER: In March.

ELDRIDGE: In March.

And before that you had had an X26P, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: And that taser also had a laser and a safety and things like that, right?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: The screen that turned on?

POTTER: Yes. ELDRIDGE: And the taser -- that was a taser that you had been carrying

for years before, right?

POTTER: Yes.

ELDRIDGE: Very similar to the Taser Seven in that way?

POTTER: Similar but different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So that largely referenced the different safety mechanism of the taser versus the gun.

But let's show the picture of how different they look. And as Laura describe, they clearly look differently. They also are different weights. They are in different parts of the holster.

Joey, do you think the defense has addressed this appropriately to try to counter the argument that the prosecution is making here?

JACKSON: Yes. I do not see that. I certainly know that, look, when you put someone on the stand, right, there are certain calculated risks.

And she comes across as very contrite. Certainly, she said she was in therapy, right? She said she had to leave her job.

All those things, she's saying the right thing. This is a mother. This is a wife. This is a person in the community. All of that is so important.

And I think the defense is really hanging their hat on that issue, that the jury would connect. And now that they know her, will they be now loathe to convict her?

But having said all of that, just pivoting back to Laura's excellent point, it's about intention here, and it's about not needing intention here.

This is not a case where when you have to establish pre-meditation, you have to establish deliberation, you have to establish malice.

No. You just have to demonstrate that there was negligence because there's a life involved. You know you have to preserve life. You know you have to protect life. You know you're trained on this.

Remember, Ana, what did she say? You were trained? Yes, I was at some point. No, it was March of this year, wasn't it, right? It was recent. And she's been 26 years on the force.

Should you know better? Should you have a sense of the distinctions between the two? And should you have shot him under these circumstances?

That's what the defense is contending with. And I think it's very difficult to overcome. CABRERA: The defense called this police psychologist, an expert on a

phenomenon called action errors, just before we heard from Potter, before she took the stand.

And basically, the action errors, as they described it, when you automatically do something that's routine, even though you intend to do something else.

Though, in this case, it's pulling the gun instead of the taser, as they try to make this case that it was a mistake. And, of course, they are also trying to argue at the same time that it was justified.

But, again, 26 years on the force. Laura, what do you make of this action errors defense?

COATES: Well, the idea of a justified mistake sounds like an oxymoron to most people. And I'm sure it includes the actual members of the jury.

For the reason that you can either have these two moments in time.

Most of the time, when you're talking about officer-involved shootings, you're talk about whether there was a reasonable amount of force that actually matched the level of aggression that may or may not have been displayed to this officer.

That's one clear part of this story.

The other part of this story, however, is, what weapon and what level force was required, and did you actually follow through on that?

So the idea of her reaching for a taser, which looking at those pictures, Ana, again, it's very difficult to understand how that could be a reasonable mistake that somebody has made, and not understand that they're actually reaching for a firearm and not a taser.

So you've got these two different points in time where we're used to, as a society, talking about the level of force.

This is about a level of force that was determined by this particular officer, that she wanted to use a taser. She said, "taser, taser, taser." She said, "I'm going to tase you."

Then she grabbed a firearm and shot him in the chest. He himself said, "You shot me." That, of course, sparked her emotional reaction on the stand.

So I think we all know about muscle memory and the habit of doing things and believing, that, look, sometimes you're drawn just by muscle memory alone to do something.

But is that reasonable? Is it reasonable to have done so in this context?

Is it reasonable to have thought and had this cognitive dissonance between taser, taser, taser and grabbing what was not yellow, grabbing something that was smaller, grabbing something that you don't have a memory after that point in time?

[13:45:04]

And remember, she said, I don't remember until my husband came onto the scene, into the precinct, et cetera.

But we heard from the actual camera footage talking about I'm going to prison. She recognized the mistake in that particular moment. So she knew at that moment it was unreasonable.

It's hard though. It's very difficult to have a case like this, Ana. There are really no winners. There's a life lost. This is obviously tragic. This is obviously an extraordinary, sad set of affairs or set of circumstances.

But in the law, we have measures to still prosecute those as well. If it's unreasonable, if it was culpably negligent, if it's something you could have avoided and could have foreseen.

And for a police officer, we hold them to a higher standard. Why? Because they get the benefit of the doubt in every other circumstance.

You can't pick and choose. Now you want to be treated like everyone else.

CABRERA: Laura Coates and Joey Jackson, I really, really appreciate both of you. Thank you for being with us.

We expect Potter to return to the stand as soon as this lunch break is over. And we'll take you back to court when that happens.

Here ahead in the NEWSROOM, school officials, parents across the country all on edge today after a viral TikTok warning about school violence. We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:40]

CABRERA: Another story impacting a lot of families today. A vague but very broad warning of school violence going viral, putting officials and students, teachers, parents all on edge.

Schools across the country taking extra precautions, some even canceling classes, in response to a threat warning that started on TikTok.

The Department of Homeland Security said it has no evidence the posts are credible, but authorities are encouraging the public to remain alert.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is joining us, along with CNN tech reporter Brian Fung.

To just bring up the details here, Polo, talk about how it started and spread. POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, we can't underscore enough, at

this point, based on information from authorities, there's no viable intelligence that indicates this was a legitimate threat.

However, when you step back, this has caused some real-world impact. You have some schools, in Minnesota and Texas, for example, that decided to cancel classes.

You have law enforcement resources that are certainly stretched to make sure that there's no threat.

And not to mention the fear that parents have to deal with this morning when they found out about this.

Now based on information we're getting from the National Education Association, that represents millions of educators, this started as an anonymous challenge on TikTok to carry out violence today.

And that morphed into videos of people that were recommending that folks stay safe if they're going to school today. But there was no mention of any specific school district.

But as you could imagine, this is certainly getting the attention of local and state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. But again, echoed what we are heard, no credible threat.

But you not only have school cancellations but the real stress that families experience, staff at schools experience, and then, of course, the kids that are still trying to bring their fall semester to a quiet close.

CABRERA: And there's stress on police departments this time of the year. But not only this time of the year but, obviously, in light of this threat, a lot of police departments increasing their police presence, so stretching resources thin here.

Brian, let's talk about TikTok and how it is responding to this?

BRIAN FUNG, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, well, TikTok has been scouring the platform looking for any evidence to substantiate the possibility of potential violence at schools.

And it said it can't find any. All it is finding are these vague warnings, encouraging people to stay home from school.

And it is removing those warnings, according to TikTok spokesperson, because the -- it represents misinformation on the platform and it violates the company's misinformation policy.

Based on what they're hearing from law enforcement and school officials, these TikTok warning videos are, you know, are not actually factually true. And so the company is taking them down where it sees them.

And that is really important that the company is doing that. Because what they're really concerned about is not whether or not there may be some credible threat here.

But that, in fact, that the videos may end up inspiring or encouraging people who are already predisposed perhaps to engage in violence to carry out an attack, thereby making some -- fulfilling people's worst fears.

And so doing, the company is actually taking on local media reports and saying that they have, in some cases, spun it out of proportion.

Saying in a statement to CNN, "We are deeply concerned that the proliferation of local media reports on an alleged trend that has not been found on the platform could end up inspiring real-world harm."

And, Ana, this just goes to show how a lot of social media experts have warned that these narratives that play out on technology platforms can end up leading to real-world harm even if the actual substance of what is being spread may not be truthful or factual or grounded in any kind of reality.

CABRERA: Brian Fung and Polo Sandoval, thank you for your reporting.

Let's bring in CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, now. She's a former assistant secretary at of Department of Homeland Security.

And, Juliette, you came to mind because you have a lot of experience when it comes to online activity and just obviously national security.

[13:55:07]

By all indications, there's no credible threat here, according to officials. But how could they be so sure?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Look, you can't be. I'm not going to blame any school district for closing but we also have to begin to get smarter about what we're interpreting from social media.

There has -- in my memory, there's been no activation to do something violent that is not -- just going to throw out there, right? If someone gets online and says, everyone be violent, those are never successful.

The kind of radicalization you see online is very targeted. And what we've seen from the school shooting cases is that it's the perpetrator who goes online and basically sometimes admits what he is about to do.

So we have to get smarter about the noise of social media.

What happens, it appears, is all of these kids get online and sort of are now worried about a rumored threat. That worry then amplified school districts.

And I'll be honest, at some stage, someone has to step in and say, we're not shutting down our school because a bunch of kids gone on a social media site because their worried. And I don't mean to sound sort of critical, but in this age, when

things move fast, there's no credible threat, and we want our kids in school, safely, we have to help these school districts very quickly.

And honestly I think that is what TikTok was trying to do. I think TikTok was saying, we don't see anything here.

CABRERA: Right. Well, obviously, there's that "better safe than sorry" mentality that a lot of these school districts are putting on the forefront, right?

KAYYEM: Yes.

CABRERA: But how can investigators, who are involved here, could they determine even where this originated? And is that important?

KAYYEM: It is. It is a weird one, though, I will tell you. Just drilling down on it is, was there a reaction to something that was real or something that was just sort of goofing off?

So it is the reaction, a bunch of students starting to get nervous, and saying, be careful, tomorrow is violence day. Then the parents see it, then the school districts sees it. You saw this ratcheting up.

So obviously, there is a specific perpetrator, you want to be able to investigate them, what is their online identification. TikTok has probably already figured out, if they can, who it is and will give that information to law enforcement.

But in a world in which things get amplified, and can have a physical consequence, which is our schools being closed, we have got to get sophisticated about that amplification.

Because as you said, "better safe than sorry" can't be the standard when so much is out there. A school district could be closed all of the time. Think of COVID.

If you took the "better safe than sorry," right, the standard of COVID, our kids would never be back in school and no one wants that.

So we have to figure out a way to interpret this intelligence a little bit better.

CABRERA: This is a new threat environment, right?

KAYYEM: Yes.

CABRERA: Once again, social media has a big role in all of this.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: How do you feel about how TikTok has responded?

KAYYEM: I thought they've been good. They've been pushing back on the response, saying we're a social media platform, we cater to teenagers, for the most part, or young people, for most part. And so we're trying to figure out what is going on.

But also things can get, you know, sort of amplified and people in charge need to be able to interpret it better.

What I would like, more than everyone reacting to a generalized threat that there's going to be a day of violence, is the social media platforms getting much better about the very specific stuff that we see on it.

The calls for specific violence at a place, the radicalization that we see going on. This stuff is, unfortunately, always going to be there.

And the social media platforms could show their concern for our children if they actually got more focused on the real radicalization that is going on online.

CABRERA: One of the things TikTok mentioned in the response is the concern, the media coverage characterizing this, could unintentionally encourage someone to carry out an actual attack.

What does your experience tell you about that?

KAYYEM: There's this thing about copycats. It is not -- I think we overexaggerate it.

The idea that someone who didn't have those thoughts before, or might not have been before, all of a sudden, wakes up one day and says, it is a day to do violence, is very, very rare.

And what we find, in most of these cases, is all of the metrics were already there well before there's a -- there's anything going on, on social media.

The person has access to guns. They are expressing a desire to go into a school and shoot people, as we've seen before.

[13:59:59]

So we need to focus on specific individuals, than the idea of a lot of people get radicalized by a mere call to violence. That is just the history of radicalization.

CABRERA: Yes.

Well, Juliette Kayyem, I appreciate your expertise. Thank you for taking time with us today.