A Minnesota police officer was acquitted of manslaughter on Friday in the shooting death of Philando Castile, a black motorist whose girlfriend streamed the aftermath live on Facebook. Outside the courthouse, Castile’s mother said the officer got away with “murder”.
Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino, was also cleared of two lesser charges arising from the July 2016 traffic stop in a St Paul suburb. Jurors deliberated for about 29 hours over five days.
Castile was shot just seconds after informing Yanez that he was carrying a gun. Yanez testified that Castile was pulling his gun out of his pocket despite commands not to do so. The defense also argued Castile was high on marijuana and said that affected his actions.
Castile had a permit for the weapon, and prosecutors questioned whether Yanez ever saw it. They argued that the officer overreacted and that Castile was not a threat.
The shooting was one of a string of killings of African Americans by police around the US, and the livestreaming of its aftermath by Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, attracted even more attention. Public outcry included protests in Minnesota that shut down highways and surrounded the governor’s mansion.
Castile’s family claimed he was profiled because of his race, and the shooting renewed concerns about how police officers interact with minorities. Minnesota governor Mark Dayton also weighed in, saying he did not think the shooting would have happened if Castile had been white.
On Friday, members of Castile’s family reacted angrily. His mother, Valerie Castile, stood and swore. His sister and others sobbed loudly. Family members tried to leave the courtroom, and did so after security officers briefly barred their way. Outside the courthouse, Valerie Castile said Yanez got away with “murder”.
“I will continue to say murder,” she said. “I am so very, very, very disappointed in the system here in the state of Minnesota. Nowhere in the world do you die from being honest and telling the truth.”
Philando Castile’s sister, Allysza, said through tears: “He didn’t deserve to die the way he did. I will never have faith in the system.”
Yanez stared ahead with no reaction as the verdict was read. Afterwards, one of his attorneys, Tom Kelly, said the defense was “confident in our client. We felt all along his conduct was justified. However that doesn’t take away from the tragedy of the event.”
Prosecutors declined to comment.
Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. He also faced two lesser counts of endangering Castile’s girlfriend and her then-four-year-old daughter for firing his gun into the car near them.
The jury began its deliberations on Monday, after just five days of testimony, evidence and arguments. The 12-member panel included two black jurors. The rest were white. None was Latino.
Juror Dennis Ploussard said the jury was split 10-2 earlier this week in favor of acquittal and spent a lot of time dissecting the “culpable negligence” requirement for conviction. The last two holdouts agreed on Friday on acquittal, he said. Ploussard declined to say whether he thought Yanez acted appropriately, but said the jury sympathized with the Castile family.
“We struggled with it. I struggled with it. It was very, very hard,” Ploussard said, adding that he thought the jury delivered the right verdict. He would not identify the two early holdouts, but said they were not the jury’s only two black members.
Yanez testified that he stopped Castile in the St Paul suburb of Falcon Heights because he thought the 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker looked like one of two men who had robbed a nearby convenience store a few days earlier. Castile’s car had a faulty brake light, giving the 29-year-old officer a legally sufficient pretext for pulling him over, several experts testified.
Squad-car video played repeatedly for the jury showed a wide view of the traffic stop and the shooting, with the camera pointed toward Castile’s car. While it captured what was said between the two men and showed Yanez firing into the vehicle, the footage did not show what happened inside the car or what Yanez might have seen.
The video showed that the situation escalated quickly, Yanez shooting Castile just seconds after Castile said: “Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.” Five of the officer’s seven shots struck Castile. Witnesses testified that the gun was in a pocket of Castile’s shorts when paramedics removed him from his vehicle.
Prosecutors called several witnesses to try to show that Yanez never saw the gun and acted recklessly and unreasonably. But defense attorneys called their own witnesses to back up Yanez’s claim that he saw Castile pulling the gun and that Yanez was right to shoot.
After shooting Castile, Yanez was heard on the squad-car video telling a supervisor that he did not know where Castile’s gun was, then that he told Castile to get his hand off it. Yanez testified: “What I meant by that was I didn’t know where the gun was up until I saw it in his right thigh area.”
He said he clearly saw a gun and that Castile ignored his commands to stop pulling it out of his pocket. His voice choked with emotion as he talked of being “scared to death” and thinking of his wife and baby daughter in the split-second before he fired.
Prosecutors argued that Yanez could have taken lesser steps, such as asking to see Castile’s hands or asking where the gun was. After Castile told the officer he had the gun, Yanez told Castile “OK, don’t reach for it then” and “Don’t pull it out”.
On the squad-car video, Castile can be heard saying “I’m not pulling it out” as Yanez opens fire. Prosecutors said Castile’s last words were: “I wasn’t reaching for it.”