Kim Potter trial: Daunte Wright’s girlfriend sobs as she says she was ‘only one’ who tried to save him
Alayna Albrecht-Payton testifies on day two of Kim Potter’s manslaughter trial about the moment Daunte Wright was shot dead in April
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Daunte Wright’s girlfriend broke down in tears on Thursday as she testified that she was the “only one” who tried to save the Black 20-year-old after he was shot by police officer Kim Potter.
Alayna Albrecht-Payton took the stand in Ms Potter’s manslaughter trial on Thursday morning to give emotional testimony about the moment the veteran officer fired the fatal shot during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, back on 11 April.
Ms Albrecht-Payton, 20, was a passenger in the car when Ms Potter and rookie officer Anthony Luckey pulled Mr Wright over for driving with expired licence plates and an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
Ms Potter, a Brooklyn Center police officer of 26 years, has said she mistook her firearm for a taser when she shot and killed the Black father-of-one.
She said Mr Wright went to drive away from the scene when the officers tried to arrest him, after learning he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest on a firearms charge.
The shooting took place as another Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin was on trial for the killing of another Black man George Floyd just 10 miles away. Chauvin was convicted of murder.
Ms Potter is now on trial in the same courthouse in Hennepin County on charges of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter.
She has pleaded not guilty and is expected to take the stand in her defence.
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Kim Potter trial: Defence tries to shift blame on to Daunte Wright saying ‘all he had to do was surrender’
Kim Potter trial: Body cam shows officer yell ‘I grabbed the wrong f****** gun’ after shooting
On day two of the trial, Ms Albrecht-Payton told the court how she and Mr Wright were “just at the start” of their relationship and had met just a few weeks earlier.
She said Mr Wright appeared to be “really scared” and “nervous” when the police officers pulled them over for a traffic stop.
She testified that the officers then asked Mr Wright to get out of the car but did not tell him why.
"He was really scared. Like, I’ve never seen him like that before because if you know Daunte, like, he’s just really happy, he’s positive, and you can’t really be like sad or depressed or angry or mad around him, and, like, he was just so nervous," she sobbed.
Ms Albrecht-Payton said she remembered suddenly hearing a “boom" at the moment that Ms Potter shot Mr Wright with her firearm.
“I just remember hearing the boom, the bang of the gun, then I remember looking up and seeing another white car coming towards us and I remember lifting my head and ‘boom,’” she recalled.
The 20-year-old testified how she “was the only one out of everybody there who was trying to help” Mr Wright as he gasped for air.
She said she desperately tried to stop the bleeding, grabbing a belt and any clothing she could find in the car to press onto his gunshot wound.
“I took my belt off and I grabbed whatever was in the car, a sweater, a towel, and I put it on his chest like you see in the movies and the tv shows – I just didn’t know what to do,” she said.
“I just tried to hold it and I just tried to scream his name. I just kept saying ‘Daunte, Daunte, please say something’. He just couldn’t, I know he tried, and I know he wanted to.”
She added: “I remember trying to get him up. I was the only one out of everybody there who was trying to help him, and I was trying to push on his chest and call his name and he wasn’t answering me he was just gasping, just taking bursts of air.”
Ms Albrecht-Payton said she keeps “playing that image in my head daily” of his final moments.
Ms Albrecht-Payton also gave a tearful apology to Mr Wright’s mother Katie Bryant for turning the camera of her phone to show her dying son in the driver’s seat.
“I was delirious. I was screaming ‘they shot him, they shot him’ and then I pointed the camera on him, and I’m so sorry I did that,” said Ms Albrecht-Payton.
“No mom should have to see her son like that on her phone on a video-call. I know how my mom felt when she couldn’t find me for hours after.
“I just know that I hurt her by doing that and I apologise, Katie.”
Ms Bryant testified on Wednesday that her son had phoned her to tell her he had been pulled over by police moments before the shooting.
The grieving mother said she had lost connection with him and called back by video call, with a woman – Ms Albrecht-Payton – answering the phone screaming “they shot him”.
Ms Bryant said the passenger turned the camera onto her son and she saw his lifeless body.
“My son was laying there. He was unresponsive and he looked dead," she sobbed.
Ms Albrecht-Payton was also injured in the incident suffering a broken jaw, lacerations and a concussion when the car moved off and crashed into another vehicle following the shooting.
Under cross-examination, she told the court she couldn’t remember if the engine of the car was on or off during the incident, only that Mr Wright’s hands were “never on the wheel”.