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Posted: 2022-02-19T14:51:23Z | Updated: 2022-02-19T15:26:21Z

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) The judge who sentenced white former Officer Kim Potter on Friday to two years in prison for killing Black motorist Daunte Wright cited the difficult job that police face and Potters remorse as justification for giving her a light sentence.

Hennepin County District Judge Regina Chu choked up as she described the difficulty deciding on a sentence for Potter, who said she meant to use her Taser but mistakenly fired her handgun into Wrights chest as he tried to drive away from a traffic stop in April.

Wrights family and attorneys angrily condemned Chu, who is Asian American, for going well below prosecutors recommendations. They pointed out that a Black former officer convicted of shooting a white woman in 2017 in a different Minnesota case got no such mercy despite his expressions of remorse.

Katie Wright, who is white, told reporters that Potter murdered my son, and that, with this sentence, the justice system murdered him all over again. She accused Chu of being taken in by a performance she alleged was coached, and wondered why her own tears didnt get such a sympathetic response.

This is the problem with our justice system today, Wright said. White women tears trump trump justice. And I thought my white woman tears would be good enough because theyre true and genuine.