That woman is getting maybe more than she deserves. She showed immediate regret for her monumental fuckup. Does she deserve some form of punishment? Yes. But in the form of demotion, termination, forfeiture of pension. But prison time? Not especially. Her actions were what I'd expect from someone who receives poor training. I don't know what their ongoing training is like in that department but any trainer worth their salt would have corrected that mixup right quick and in a hurry.
Good post with some good insight. Your reference to poor training will certainly come up in the civil suit when it gets filed.
A few years in prison, some probation, and forfeiture of future employment benefits would seem like a reasonable outcome - given the fact she killed someone without due process. Think of this way, if someone accidentally shot a police officer and immediately showed regret, what would be their proper punishment?
After reviewing the bodycam footage, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension asserted:
[An official] later collected and reviewed the layout of the defendant’s duty belt. [The official] observed that the defendant’s handgun is holstered on the right side of the belt and her Taser is holstered on the left side of the belt. Both grips/handles of the defendant’s Taser and handgun face the defendant’s rear, and the Taser is yellow with a black grip. [The official] noted the defendant’s Taser is set in a straight-draw position, meaning the defendant would have to use her left hand to draw the Taser out of its holster.
This incident in particular is a near perfect argument for fully funding police departments. If you cut funding, you cut training. If you cut training, you get accidental shootings and negligent discharges. I won't be surprised when in the near future, communities that have voted to castrate police departments have a huge surge in officer involved shootings/accidents/sloppy policing because of their short-sightedness.
If one assumes communities have been properly funding police departments, what are these communities getting now? Cities have thrown tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars into policing and are still getting some adverse outcomes. Perhaps, given the number of interactions, it is inevitable that accidents will happen.
