Daunte Wright's mom gives emotional testimony about her son calling for help before ex-cop Kim Potter fatally shot him during a traffic stop

• Former police officer Kim Potter is on trial for manslaughter in the shooting death of Daunte Wright.
• In emotional testimony on Wednesday, Wright's mother recounted phone calls she had with him shortly before the shooting.

Daunte Wright's mother testified through tears on Wednesday about her son calling for help just before former police officer Kim Potter fatally shot him in April.

Potter, who is white, is facing charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter for the shooting death of Wright, a Black man, in April 2021. Potter has pleaded not guilty to both charges, and her trial kicked off with opening statements on Wednesday.

Potter and her partner initially pulled Wright over because of an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror, before determining that his license plate was expired and that he had a warrant out for his arrest.

Police body camera footage shows that as Wright then tried to drive his vehicle away, Potter shot Wright in the chest while shouting, "Taser! Taser! Taser!" The ex-police officer has claimed that she accidentally grabbed her gun instead of her Taser, which was holstered on the opposite side of her body, when she shot Wright.

Prosecutors called Wright's mother, Katie Bryant, as their first witness on Wednesday.

Bryant recalled how her son left her house with his girlfriend on the morning of April 11, after asking for $50 to get gas and go through a car wash. Bryant told the jury that Wright called her through Facebook Messenger about ten minutes after he left home to ask what car she normally used.

About ten minutes after Wright's first call, he called Bryant again and said he had been pulled over by the police, Bryant told the jury.

"He sounded nervous, scared," Bryant said. "He asked if he was in trouble and I said, 'No, you haven't done anything wrong.'" Bryant added that she "reassured him that it would be okay."

Bryant testified that she heard a police officer approach and ask Wright to step out of the car. She told the jury she heard her son ask what he was in trouble for, and that she heard the phone "being placed on an object" before the call hung up.

Bryant told the jury she then "panicked" and called back "what seemed like 100 times." After trying to call her son back, Bryant said she decided to video call him, and that a "female answered the phone screaming."

A woman pointed the camera on Wright's phone toward the driver's seat, Bryant testified, and "my son was laying there, he was unresponsive, he looked dead." A police officer told the woman on the other end of the line to hang up the call, Bryant said.

Bryant then called 911 to find out where the shooting occurred. She testified that a neighbor drove her to the location because she was too distraught to drive, and that once she saw police lights, she got out of the car and ran more than two blocks because traffic was moving too slowly.

Prosecutors played police body camera footage of Bryant arriving at the scene of the shooting, which showed her breathing heavily and seemingly in shock.

"You guys made her hang up Facebook Live so you could kill my son," Bryant says in the footage. "That's pathetic."

A defense attorney for Potter who cross-examined Bryant asked if she was aware that her son did not have a driver's license, and that he had a warrant out for his arrest. Bryant responded that she did know Wright was not licensed to drive, but did not know that he had an active warrant at the time of the shooting.

Potter's trial is expected to last two weeks. She faces a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted on both charges.