City Prepares for Protests By Guarding Potter's House

The Minnesota house of Kim Potter, the police officer who shot Daunte Wright, has fencing around it, barricades out front, and officers standing guard. The perimeter security cost the city of Champlin more than $9,000, said spokeswoman Ashley Wagner. "Should a source become available," she said the city will seek reimbursement for the tab. There's no estimate yet for the cost of the security detail, the Verge reports. Potter, who resigned from the police department in nearby Brooklyn Center after the shooting, is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of Wright, 20. She's out on bond. Wagner said the house has to be kept secure to "protect against a fire in a residential neighborhood if anyone decided to carry through on threats, and also to provide officers with a protected place in case of a violent crowd."

Potter's neighbors have mixed feelings about the security. It telegraphs which house is hers, one woman pointed out, saying, "I walked down the street and I saw the fence and the barricade and I thought oh, this is where she lives." Police in the Minneapolis suburb said protests might be held on the street, but they haven't said how long officers will be stationed there, per KSTP. The neighborhood has been on edge, one resident said, though he also wasn't sure of the need for the security. "Face value it seems like overkill," he said, "but there could be things behind the scenes that I don't know about." The courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, where Derek Chauvin was tried for the killing of George Floyd, is being protected in much the same way, per the New York Times. (More Kim Potter stories.)