Minnesota officer who fatally shot Philando Castile charged with manslaughter

Published 3:25 pm Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Prosecutors in Minnesota said Wednesday that they had charged a police officer with second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting Philando Castile during a traffic stop in a Twin Cities suburb over the summer.

The shooting’s aftermath was broadcast on Facebook Live by Diamond Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend, footage that quickly spread across social media and cable news, making it one of the most high-profile fatal police shootings during the protests that have occurred across the country in recent years.

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Castile, a well-liked cafeteria manager at a local school, is one of at least 840 people fatally shot by police this year, according to a Washington Post database. While officers are rarely charged, that number has ticked up in recent years amid intense national scrutiny on how police use force, and video footage has increasingly emerged in deadly shootings.

But Castile’s death in suburban Falcon Heights, Minnesota, drew particular attention because of Reynolds’ role calmly documenting the aftermath and outlining what happened.

“Stay with me,” she said at one point in the video, even as Castile continued bleeding in the front seat.

John Choi, the Ramsey County attorney, said at a news conference in St. Paul on Wednesday morning that Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who shot Castile, would also be charged with endangering the lives of Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter, who was also in the car.

According to the 10-page criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, Yanez, who said he feared for his life at the time of the shooting, could face up to 20 years in prison and up to $40,000 in fines.

The complaint states that Yanoz pulled over Castile, 32, after seeing him driving on the night of July 6 and declaring that he looked like a suspect in a convenience store robbery days earlier. Choi said Wednesday that Castile is not a suspect in the robbery.

Yanez pulled Castile over at 9:04 p.m., and less than a minute later, he began firing the first of seven fatal shots into the car.

Authorities said that they reviewed audio recordings from Yanez’s squad car as well as video footage of the stop in determining the timeline. In the complaint, prosecutors say that Yanez approached Castile’s car and told him about a problem with his car’s brake light.

After Castile handed Yanez his insurance card, Castile then said: “Sir, I have to tell you that I do have a firearm on me.” Yanez, before Castile finished the sentence, put his hand on his holstered gun and calmly replied “Okay,” according to the complaint.

Seconds later, Yanez told Castile not to pull out his gun, to which Castile said, “I’m not pulling it out,” and Reynolds echoed the same message, the complaint said. Yanez then screamed, “Don’t pull it out” before pulling his own gun out and firing seven shots at Castile.

The complaint then quotes Reynolds saying what was heard in the Facebook live stream that went viral after the shooting: “He killed my boyfriend.”

An attorney for Reynolds could not be immediately reached.

Choi said that Yanez’s use of deadly force was unjustified, noting that while Castile was armed at the time he was pulled over, he “never removed or tried to remove” the gun he had in his pocket. Castile had a permit to carry his gun, something that sparked internal divisions among members of the National Rifle Association at the time.

Castile’s relatives were told of the decision to pursue charges against the officer on Tuesday night, Choi said.

“The family is pleased with that recommendation,” Valerie Castile, his mother, said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We are here in solidarity, my family and I, to support that decision.”

She called on anyone who protests to do so peacefully, saying that “we want peace. We don’t want any protests to get outrageous.”

An attorney representing Castile’s family said that they also planned to file a civil lawsuit stemming from his death.

Choi opted to make a decision about charging Yanez on his own, rather than by using a grand jury, because he said that it would be best if he made the decision “and be directly accountable to the public.”

The shooting occurred in Falcon Heights, a suburb near both Minneapolis and St. Paul, the state capital, and involved an officer who belonged to the department in St. Anthony, another city in the area.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said in a statement that Choi “made one of the hardest decisions a prosecutor has to make,” and said that he believed Choi’s “decision was grounded in a thorough investigation of the facts and a deep commitment to upholding his public responsibility.”

Yanez and his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, were both put on leave from the St. Anthony Police Department after the shooting. Kauser will not face any charges, Choi said, and the complaint states that he did not touch or remove his gun.

Yanez will make his first court appearance Friday at 1:30 p.m. and plans to turn himself in, Choi said.

An attorney listed for Yanez did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

During a state investigation carried out by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which probed the shooting before handing its findings over to Choi’s office, Yanez told officials that he thought he and others in the area faced mortal danger.

“At that point, I was scared and I was in fear for my life and my partner’s life,” he said, according to the complaint. “And for the little girl in the back and the front seat passenger.”

Yanez said he believed Castile was putting his hand around something during the encounter.

The death of Castile came during a particularly fraught moment nationwide, one that saw a spate of shootings by and of police. Castile was shot and killed a day afte ran officer in Baton Rouge fatally shot Alton Sterling, and these two shootings set off a series of protests nationwide. At one of these demonstrations, a lone attacker in Dallas killed five police officers in an act of apparent retaliation, followed by another ambush that killed three officers in Baton Rouge later that month.

The Post’s database of shootings by police shows that 13 people have already been fatally shot by officers in Minnesota so far this year, already exceeding the 12 such people killed by officers there during all of last year.

In another case that prompted protests, police in Minneapolis fatally shot Jamar Clark last November. Earlier this year, prosecutors said the officers involved would not face charges because they believed Clark was trying to grab one of their guns.

A review by the Minneapolis Star Tribune conducted last year found that at least 143 people have been killed by police in Minnesota since 2000, and no officers were charged in any of these deaths until that point.