Comments by "cchris874" (@cchris874) on "Jury selection underway in the trial of former officer Kim Potter, Daunte Wright" video.

There's one element missing from your equation. In time sensitive and stressful situations, we all employ shortcut reasoning based on simplified assumptions because there's not enough time to consciously reason every detail out. The fancy term for this is heuristics if one wants to learn more about it. The problem is, behavior under stress is not always perfect and in some cases leads to big errors. But the key take away is that these errors are often completely unconscious, so the person committing them has no way to guard against them. This is precisely what could have happened here. Also, while not exactly the same, a Google image search shows that tasers and hand guns often look very similar, and have the same basic size and design. Similar enough that under stress, you might make such a mistake. I say give the benefit of the doubt to Potter. It's the same reason we don't lock up commercial pilots for their fatal errors. You can't expect perfection under stress. Period.
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@Bl00obs Yes, in this game of holding the police accountable, which of course they should be, why do we never hear the victims' mother/father say, "I am sorry for my son's conduct, which put your lives at risk. You both need to be held accountable." That would be a class act. Though I can understand that's asking a lot of a grieving mother. And a nation in the grip of the absurd.
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I would say, not necessarily. In Minnesota, 2nd degree manslaughter requires the accused "consciously takes chances" of causing death. Did she consciously take a reckless chance? Or was it purely accidental?
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@network263 But there's no proof she was confused. In fact, in situations like this, mistakes can be entirely unconscious. This is what the study of human bias under stress shows. Any one of us can make such a mistake, however rarely.
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@network263 Not so. Most people are unfamiliar with the study of heuristics, or decision making under stress. It shows that under a deadline, none of us can be perfect. And even worse, the errors we make can be entirely unconscious. Thus we cannot protect ourselves from them. Even the most meticulous and experienced are subject to this. This contradicts common sense. It's another fascinating example where reality routinely outsmarts us.
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"and the officer standing right next to her were completely unaware that she was holding her firearm and not her taser??" Well, I assume all this happened very fast. Maybe no one was looking at her hand? I don't see it's realistic to assume others to be focusing on her hand and instantly yell out, "that's your gun!" One last thing, bias under stress often occurs to precisely those who are most trained and experienced, contrary to what people think. This has turned out to be the case especially with hunting accidents. This is yet another instance where common sense may be totally wrong.
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