How could a veteran Minnesota police officer have mistaken her pistol for a Taser and fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright? That, at least, is the local police chief's theory for what happened in the incident.
The answer to that question may have as much to do with what was going on in Brooklyn Center police Officer Kim Potter’s mind as with which weapon she was holding in her hand, experts told NBC News on Tuesday.
The Glock pistol that Potter was wielding when she fired the fatal shot at Wright on Sunday as he allegedly attempted to flee is black metal and almost a pound heavier than the neon-colored plastic Taser she may have believed she was brandishing as she was caught on a video yelling, “Taser! Taser! Taser!”
“A Glock is a very lightweight handgun,” said Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith, spokeswoman for the National Police Association and a retired 29-year veteran of the Naperville Police Department in Illinois. “But a Taser is heavier than you think.”
While the exact models Officer Kim Potter was carrying are not clear, the images show the general differences of these weapons, including the grips and the trigger safety that is only on a pistol.
