Philando Castile Killer Charged With Second-Degree Manslaughter, Officer Jeronimo Yanez To Turn Himself In

On Wednesday, prosecutors announced that the Minnesota police officer responsible for killing Philando Castile, the black man whose girlfriend who used Facebook to live stream the aftermath of the fatal shooting during a traffic stop in July, will be charged with second-degree manslaughter.

The St. Anthony police officer who shot and killed Castile, Jeronimo Yanez, is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Friday. During the press conference for the announcement of the charges, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said that the officer shot the 32-year-old on July 6 will also face two felony counts of dangerous discharge of his firearm along with the second-degree manslaughter charges.

“Based upon our thorough and exhaustive review of the facts of the case it is my conclusion that the use of deadly force…was not justified.”

At the time of the shooting Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, had been in the car along with her 4-year-old daughter. Her live stream of the incident, after Philando Castile was shot, to Facebook gained national attention as it spread like wildfire through social media. The woman said that Castile had been shot several times as he reached for his ID at the instructions of the officer. Reynolds also noted that Castile had just told Yanez that he was carrying a licensed firearm with him, a point that Choi also addressed.

Charges Filed Against Policeman Who Killed Philando Castile, Timeline of events https://t.co/ab4piwaG3W #PhilandoCastile pic.twitter.com/SPsPNlb77p

— CitizenSlant (@CitizenSlant) November 16, 2016

The County Attorney stated that Philando Castile “never removed or tried to remove” the gun he was carrying with him and this is the reason the deadly force Officer Jeronimo Yanez used on the man was unjustified. A prosecutor advised that Jeronimo Yanez had not been arrested but had already agreed to turn himself in.

Yanez’s attorney, Tom Kelly, argued for the use of the deadly force, though. He stated that the officer had reacted to the presence of a gun because he had initially pulled Castile into that traffic stop because he believed he had been a match for a suspect in an armed robbery. However, that stop in suburban St. Paul had been a case of mistaken identity, and Castile’s family says that the elementary school cafeteria worker had been racially profiled.

According to the Washington Post, Choi says he chose to make the decision about charging Officer Yanez on his own instead of using a grand jury because he thought it best that he “be directly accountable to the public.” The family of Philando Castile had been informed of the decision to charge the officer with second-degree manslaughter from Tuesday night.

John Choi stated that investigators had given the case to his office in late September and they had begun reviewing the evidence for the possible charges to bring against the officer. Despite strong pressure to turn over the case to a special prosecutor, Choi decided against such a move, but he did add one to his team to get an outside perspective on the case. National use-of-force consultants were also enlisted to help in building the case against the man who killed Philando Castile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYKoGUcX3wg

That shooting, along with the July 5 fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sparked nationwide protests including a weekslong demonstration outside of the governor’s mansion and another which caused Interstate 94 in St. Paul to shut down for a few hours. About 50 arrests and injuries to over 20 officers, who reported that bottles, rocks, cement chunks and other debris was hurled at them, resulted from the interstate protest. The police killings also gave new life to the debate surrounding the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they are supposed to protect and serve.

It was also revealed that areas where the St. Anthony Police Department patrolled, such as St. Anthony, Lauderdale, and Falcon Heights, saw a disproportionate number of arrests of African-Americans. In July, it was announced that an analysis of police data for St. Anthony officers in 2016 showed that black people made up nearly half of those arrested even though census data shows that only 7 percent of the residents in all three cities are black.

Yanez’s lawyer argued that the shooting had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the presence of a gun and in the video Diamond Reynolds showed of the shooting of Philando Castile, the officer could be heard saying that “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off it.” However, Choi said that Castile posed no threat and the officer was reckless with the man’s life.

“He [Castile] volunteered in good faith that he had a firearm, beyond what the law requires… He emphatically stated he was not pulling it out. He was restricted by his seat belt. He was accompanied by a woman and a young child.”

The charge of second-degree manslaughter is being argued as insufficient by many based on the circumstances and the words of the County Attorney as well. However, the Chicago Tribune pointed out that to bring a serious charge like murder against an officer, prosecutors would have to show that the officer was not just reckless but also possessed ill intentions.

In the state of Minnesota a second-degree manslaughter, or an involuntary manslaughter charge has a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

[Featured Image by Jim Mone/AP Images]