Shooting of Philando Castile

Victim

Philando Divall Castile (July 16, 1983 – July 6, 2016) was 32 years old at the time of his death. Castile was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Saint Paul Central High School in 2001 and worked for the Saint Paul Public School District from 2002 until his death. Castile began as a nutrition services assistant at Chelsea Heights Elementary School and Arlington High School (now Washington Technology Magnet School). He was promoted to nutrition services supervisor at J. J. Hill Montessori Magnet School, in August 2014. Prior to the shooting, Castile was stopped by the police 52 times for minor traffic infractions.

Police

Jeronimo Yanez was identified by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as the officer who shot Castile. The other officer involved in the traffic stop was identified as Joseph Kauser, who was described as Yanez's partner. Both officers had been with the St. Anthony Police Department for four years at the time of the shooting, and were longtime friends who had graduated together from the Minnesota State University, Mankato police academy in 2010.

Yanez, of South St. Paul, was 28 years old at the time of the shooting and is a Mexican American.

The St. Anthony Police Department has 23 officers. Eight officers are funded through policing contracts with the cities of Lauderdale and Falcon Heights. In a press briefing at the scene, St. Anthony's interim police chief Jon Mangseth said that the shooting was the first officer-involved shooting that the department had experienced in at least thirty years.

Incident

Castile was pulled over as part of a traffic stop by Yanez and Kauser in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. Castile and Reynolds were returning from shopping at a grocery store; earlier that evening, Castile had gone for a haircut, eaten dinner with his sister, and apparently picked up his girlfriend from his apartment in St. Paul.

A St. Anthony police officer patrolling Larpenteur Avenue radioed to a nearby squad that he planned to pull over the car and check the IDs of the driver and passenger, saying, "The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery. The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just because of the wide-set nose. I couldn't get a good look at the passenger." At 9:04 p.m. CDT, the officer told a nearby officer that he would wait for him to make the stop.

The stop took place on Larpenteur Avenue at Fry Street, just outside the Minnesota state fairgrounds, at about 9:05 p.m. CDT. Riding in a 1997 white Oldsmobile with Castile were his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter. Castile was the driver, Reynolds was the front-seat passenger, and the child was in the back seat. "According to investigators, Yanez approached the car from the driver's side, while Kauser approached it from the passenger side."

At some point in the next 103 seconds—which are not covered by the audio—Yanez fatally shot Castile.

The events that occurred immediately following the shooting were streamed live in a 10-minute video by Reynolds via Facebook. The recording appears to begin seconds after Castile was shot, just after 9:00 p.m. CDT. The video depicts Castile slumped over, moaning and moving slightly, with a bloodied left arm and side. In the video, Reynolds is speaking with Yanez and explaining what happened. Reynolds stated on the video that Yanez "asked him for license and registration. He told him that it was in his wallet, but he had a pistol on him because he's licensed to carry." Castile did have a license to carry a gun. Reynolds further narrated that the officer said, "Don't move" and as Castile was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times. Reynolds told the officer, "You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir." Reynolds also said "Please don't tell me he's dead," while Yanez exclaims: "I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand open!"

At one point in the video footage, an officer orders Reynolds to get on her knees and the sound of Reynolds being handcuffed can be heard. Reynolds's phone falls onto the ground but continues recording, and an officer periodically yells, "Fuck!" The day following the shooting, Reynolds said that police had "treated me like a criminal ... like it was my fault." By the afternoon following Castile's death, the video had been viewed nearly 2.5 million times on Facebook. Reynolds, who was detained with Castile during the shooting around 9:00 p.m. CDT, was taken into custody and questioned at a police station then released the following morning around 5:00 a.m.

According to police and emergency audio of the aftermath obtained by the Star Tribune, at 9:06 p.m., Kauser called in the shooting, reporting: "Shots fired. Larpenteur and Fry." The dispatcher states, "Copy. You just heard it?" Yanez exclaims, "Code three!" Many officers then rush to the scene. One officer reports, "One adult female being taken into custody. Driver at gunpoint. Juvenile female, child, is with [another officer]. We need a couple other squads to block off intersections." Another officer called in, "All officers are good. One suspect that needs medics."

Reynolds said that officers had failed to check Castile for a pulse or to render first aid, and instead comforted the crying officer who fired the shots. Reynolds stated that Castile received no medical attention until paramedics arrived more than ten minutes after the shooting. A resident living across the street from the site of the shooting took a brief video showing an unidentified officer administering first aid on Castile before the arrival of paramedics.

Death and funeral

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office ruled Castile's death a homicide and said that he had sustained multiple gunshot wounds. The office reported that Castile died at 9:37 p.m. CDT in the emergency room of the Hennepin County Medical Center, about 20 minutes after being shot. On July 14, Castile was buried following a funeral service at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, attended by "thousands of mourners, diverse in race, gender and age."

Statements of attorneys for Yanez and Castile family

The reasonableness of the initial traffic stop, and the facts of what occurred in the 103 seconds of the stop (between the end of the pre-stop police dispatcher radio and the beginning of Reynolds' recording) were "hotly disputed" almost immediately after the shooting occurred. On July 9, Yanez's attorney, Thomas Kelly of Minneapolis, said his client "reacted to the presence of that gun and the display of that gun" and that the shooting "had nothing to do with race. This had everything to do with the presence of a gun."

In the video recorded shortly after the shooting, Reynolds said that the car was pulled over for a broken taillight. Yanez' attorney Kelly stated following the shooting that his client stopped Castile in part because he resembled a suspect in an armed robbery that had taken place nearby four days earlier, and in part because of a broken taillight. A Castile family attorney, Albert Goins, questioned this account, said that if Yanez actually thought Castile was a robbery suspect, the police would have made a "felony traffic stop" (involving "bringing the suspect out at gunpoint while officers are in a position of cover and having them lie on the ground until they can identify who that individual is") rather than an ordinary traffic stop (in which officers stop the car and ask the driver to produce documents). Goins said, "Either [Castile] was a robbery suspect and [Yanez] didn't follow the procedures for a felony stop, or [Castile] was not a robbery suspect and [Yanez] shot a man because he stood at his window getting his information."

Kelly confirmed the authenticity of the pre-stop police audio, in which one officer reports that the driver resembled a recent robbery suspect due to his "wide-set nose." The particular robbery to which the officer referred was unclear, but may have been a July 2 armed robbery at a local convenience store, in which the two suspects were "described as black men with shoulder-length or longer dreadlocks" with no information about estimated height, weight or ages. Goins said, "I can't imagine that it's reasonable suspicion to make a stop because somebody had a broad nose."

Castile's mother Valerie Castile and her lawyer Glenda Hatchett called for the case to be referred to a special prosecutor and called for the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a federal investigation.

Protests and civil unrest

By 12:30 a.m. on July 7, about three hours after the shooting, protesters gathered at the scene, "peaceful but visibly angry". More than 200 people were present. After news of Castile's death spread, crowds of protestors gathered outside the Minnesota Governor's Residence in St. Paul, chanting Castile's name and demanding that Governor Mark Dayton make a statement. That night, demonstrations in St. Paul continued, remaining "peaceful but forceful".

Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, said that her group would request a federal investigation. She also called for an independent body to investigate the shooting, expressing skepticism with the state agency that is leading the investigation of the incident, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a division of the Department of Public Safety. NAACP president Cornell William Brooks said, "I'm waiting to hear the human outcry from Second Amendment defenders over [this incident]..." Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson said, "Philando Castile should be alive today". On July 8, over 1,000 demonstrators shut down Interstate 880 in Oakland, California, for several hours to protest Castile's shooting death and that of Alton Sterling the day before.

After a week of peaceful protests and vigils, violence between protesters and police in St. Paul broke out on July 9 and 10. Some 102 people were arrested and 21 officers (15 police officers and six Minnesota State Patrol officers) had been injured, one of them seriously. A group threw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails at police and police used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse the crowd. The protesters caused Interstate 94 in between Minnesota State Highway 280 and downtown St. Paul to be closed. After they were dispersed from the highway, another group of protests took place at Dale and Grand Avenue. The violence was condemned by President Obama, Governor Dayton, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, and Police Chief Todd Axtell, who called for calm.

After the shooting, a number of activists established an encampment outside of the Governor's Residence. On July 18, demonstrators cleared the encampment and moved off the road after police directed them to move, saying that they could continue to protest "as long as it was done on the sidewalk" and did not impede vehicle or pedestrian traffic. The interactions between police and demonstrators were peaceful, and no arrests were made.

On July 19, 21 protesters—mostly members of the St. Paul and Minneapolis teachers' federations—were arrested willingly at a protest in Minneapolis after blocking a street in Minneapolis and refusing orders to disperse. The teachers marched from the Minneapolis Convention Center (where an American Federation of Teachers convention was being held) to the Nicollet Mall area; they were cited for misdemeanor public nuisance and released.

Government officials

Later in the morning of July 7, Governor Dayton appeared outside his residence and said:

My deepest condolences go out to the family and friends. On behalf of all decent-minded Minnesotans, we are shocked and horrified by what occurred last night. This kind of behavior is unacceptable. It is not the norm in Minnesota. I promise ... to see that this matter is brought to justice and all avenues are pursued and do a complete investigation. Justice will be served in Minnesota.

Dayton said he had requested an independent U.S. Department of Justice investigation and had spoken to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the matter. Dayton also commented, "Would this have happened if those passengers would have been white? I don’t think it would have." He promised to "do everything in my power to help protect the integrity" of the ongoing parallel state investigation "to ensure a proper and just outcome for all involved."

U.S. Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, whose district includes the place where Castile was shot, also called for a Justice Department investigation, and U.S. Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, also called for a federal investigation, saying in a statement: "I am horrified that we are forced to confront yet another death of a young African-American man at the hands of law enforcement. And I am heartbroken for Philando's family and loved ones, whose son, brother, boyfriend, and nephew was taken from them last night." U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, denounced the "systematic targeting of African Americans and a systematic lack of accountability."

Speaking shortly after the shootings of Castile and Alton Sterling, President Barack Obama did not comment on the specific incidents, but called on the U.S. to "do better" and said that controversial incidents arising from the police use of force were "not isolated incidents" but rather were "symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system". Obama expressed "extraordinary appreciation and respect for the vast majority of police officers" and noted the difficult nature of the job. He stated, "When incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us. This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about." Obama telephoned Castile's mother to offer his condolences.

International response

Following the shooting of Castile, Sterling, and police officers in Dallas, the Bahamian government, a Caribbean island nation with an over 90% citizenry of Afro-Bahamian origin, issued a travel advisory to its citizens in the United States, stating "[i]n particular young [Bahamian] males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate". Travel advisories were also issued by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, warning for caution in the US due to ongoing violence and the US "gun culture", and to avoid crowded areas, protests, and demonstrations as "civil disorder can result".

Official investigation

The day after the fatal shooting, the St. Anthony Police Department identified the officer who fired the fatal shots as Yanez. He and his partner Kauser were placed on paid administrative leave.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) was the lead agency in charge of the investigation. Two days following the shooting, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi called for a "prompt and thorough" investigation into the shooting. He said that he had not determined whether he would use a grand jury, but stated that if either a grand jury or prosecutors in his office determined that charges were appropriate, he would "prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law." Choi also said, "We need to come together as a community, law enforcement included, to improve our practices and procedures so we don't experience any more of these tragedies ever again."

The BCA said that squad-car video and "several" other videos had been collected as evidence. St. Anthony police do not wear body cameras. On September 28, 2016, the BCA announced that it had completed its investigation and turned over its findings to Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. Prosecutors in the Ramsey County Attorney's Office would decide whether to file charges in the shooting or bring the case to a grand jury.

Charges and prosecution

Choi reviewed the evidence with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the U.S. Attorney's office, a retired deputy chief of police in Irvine, California, and a former federal prosecutor. Seven weeks after receiving the BCA report, Choi announced that Yanez was being charged with second degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. Choi stated:

To justify the use of deadly force, it is not enough, however, for the police officer to merely express a subjective fear of death or great bodily harm. Unreasonable fear cannot justify the use of deadly force. The use of deadly force must be objectively reasonable and necessary, given the totality of the circumstances. Based upon our thorough and exhaustive review of the facts of this case, it is my conclusion that the use of deadly force by Officer Yanez was not justified, and that sufficient facts exist to prove that to be true. Accordingly, we filed a criminal complaint this morning in Ramsey County.

According to author and former FBI agent Larry Brubaker, who has written two books on officer-involved shootings, "this is the first time an officer has been charged for a fatal shooting in Minnesota in more than 200 cases that spanned over three decades".