Daunte Wright’s passenger sues ex-officer Kim Potter, Brooklyn Center alleging PTSD and ongoing injuries
The woman who was a passenger in Daunte Wright’s car when the 20-year-old Black man was fatally shot by a white police officer mistaking her gun for a taser has sued the cop and the city it happened in.
Alayna Albrecht-Payton, 21, of St. Paul, Minn., was physically injured as well as severely traumatized when Kim Potter shot Wright as he was behind the wheel, causing him to smash into an SUV, says the civil suit filed Friday in State District Court in Hennepin County. She is seeking at least $150,000 in damages.
Alayna Albrecht-Payton testifies in the trial of former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter in Minneapolis on Dec. 9, 2021.
After seeing him get shot, then having her jaw broken in the subsequent crash, then trying unsuccessfully to stop Wright’s bleeding despite her injuries as Potter collapsed onto the curb wailing, Albrecht-Payton was handcuffed and denied immediate treatment, the lawsuit alleges. She had been dating Wright for two weeks.
By the time Albrecht-Payton got to the hospital, she was too distraught to explain what had happened, the complaint said.
Albrecht-Payton would later testify to all this and more at Potter’s trial, in which the 26-year police force veteran was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison.
It was April 11, 2021, when Brooklyn Center, Minn., police pulled Wright over for an alleged traffic violation — an expired license plate and an air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror — then tried to arrest him once they discovered an outstanding misdemeanor warrant.
Kim Potter was sentenced to two years in prison.
He escaped their grasp, got back behind the wheel and tried to drive off. That was when Potter whipped out what she said she thought was a taser but turned out to be a gun, and shot him point blank in the chest. Though mortally wounded, Wright drove for several blocks before careening into an SUV.
When it was over, Albrecht-Payton’s head and face were bleeding, the lawsuit states, and blood was coming from her ears. Besides lacerations, she suffered swelling and pain, according to the complaint, cited by KMSP-TV. The then 20-year-old also had a concussion.
Albrecht-Payton needed surgery for the broken jaw, and her mouth had to be wired shut for two weeks, said the lawsuit, according to ABC News. She couldn’t eat fully solid food for another six, and had four screws in her jaw. Despite all this her teeth remain misaligned, and she still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
She became malnourished as her physical and emotional injuries wreaked havoc on her sleep as well as her ability to eat regularly, the lawsuit stated, and she was back in the hospital from April 26-29, “in an agitated delirium following her boyfriend being killed in front of her eyes,” the lawsuit stated.
Besides PTSD, Albrecht-Payton has been diagnosed with acute stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder, ABC News said.
She is seeking $50,000 each per count of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and vicarious liability, KMSP said.
“Albrecht-Payton was a blameless witness to a horribly traumatic event, which a lot of people heard her testify to in the felony trial,” her attorney Kathryn Bennett told the Star Tribune. “And she has suffered some significant and permanent injuries, including the broken jaw and the cuts, and just scared inside and out from this event.”
With News Wire Services
