Officer charged in shooting death of Philando Castile

A Minnesota police officer has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in the killing of a black man in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

St. Anthony, Minn., police officer Jeronimo Yanez fatally shot Philando Castile, 32, during a July 6 traffic stop. The shooting's gruesome aftermath was streamed live on Facebook by Castile's girlfriend, who was with him in the car along with her young daughter. The woman said Castile was shot several times while reaching for his ID after telling Yanez he had a gun permit and was armed.

Ramsey County attorney John Choi, whose office will prosecute the case, said Yanez shot Castile seven times, and that the evidence shows Castile was calm and complied with the officer's requests. Prosecutors believe Castile never tried to pull his handgun from his pocket, Choi said, adding that as Castile was dying, he moaned and uttered his final words: "I wasn't reaching for it."

Choi said the officer's unreasonable fear cannot justify the use of deadly force.

Yanez has not been arrested, Choi said, but has agreed to turn himself in. His first court appearance is scheduled for Friday.

"No reasonable officer, knowing, seeing and hearing what officer Yanez did at the time, would've used deadly force under these circumstances," Choi said as he announced the charges.

Yanez's attorney, Tom Kelly, has said Yanez who is Latino was reacting to the presence of a gun, and that one reason Yanez pulled Castile over was because he thought he looked like a possible match for an armed robbery suspect.

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But family members claimed Castile, an elementary school cafeteria worker, was racially profiled.

Choi got the case from investigators in late September and began reviewing the evidence for possible charges. Choi resisted pressure immediately after the shooting to turn the case over to a special prosecutor, but added one to his team to get an outside perspective. He also enlisted the help of national use-of-force consultants.

Choi's office has said a key question in his review was determining whether Yanez was justified in believing deadly force was necessary.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Choi said Yanez had his hand on his holster before Castile could finish his sentence, and repeatedly shouted "Don't pull it out" before he fired. Choi said the final shot was fired one minute and two seconds after Castile's vehicle came to a stop.

Choi said Castile's gun was later found deep in a front pocket of his shorts, with a loaded magazine but no bullet in the chamber.

He noted that another officer who responded did not touch his weapon and said Castile had made no sudden movements.

Squad car video captured the entire incident, including audio and subsequent conversations Yanez had with other officers, Choi said. He was not releasing the video because it was evidence in Yanez's prosecution.

Protests followed shooting

In Minnesota, second-degree manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter, carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

The shooting prompted numerous protests, including a weeks-long demonstration outside the governor's mansion and one protest that shut down Interstate 94 in St. Paul for hours. The interstate protest resulted in about 50 arrests and injuries to more than 20 officers, after police said they were hit with cement chunks, bottles, rocks and other objects.

The shooting also exposed a disproportionate number of arrests of African-Americans in St. Anthony, Lauderdale and Falcon Heights, which are all patrolled by the St. Anthony Police Department. The Associated Press reported in July that an analysis of police data showed black people made up nearly half of all arrests made by St. Anthony, Minn., officers in 2016. Census data shows that just seven per cent of residents in the three cities are black.

Shootings under scrutiny

The fatal shootings of black men and boys by police officers have come under heightened scrutiny since the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and led to calls nationwide for officers to be held criminally responsible.

No charges were filed in the death of 18-year-old Brown, who was unarmed, after a grand jury found officer Darren Wilson acted in self-defence. The white officer had said Brown tried to grab his gun during a struggle through the window of the police vehicle and then came toward him threateningly after briefly running away.

Other police shooting deaths also did not result in charges, including the killings of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 in Cleveland, and 24-year-old Jamar Clark last year in Minneapolis.A grand jury determined the white officer who shot Tamir had no way of knowing whether the boy, who was drawing a pellet gun from his waistband, was trying to hand it over or show them it wasn't real.

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In the Clark case, prosecutors said the two white officers involved in the shooting feared for their lives when Clark tried to grab an officer's weapon during a struggle.

Officers have been charged in other cases, though. Michael Slager, a white officer in North Charleston, S.C. who has since been fired is currently on trial for murder in the 2015 death of 50-year-old Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who was shot while running from a traffic stop. More recently, Betty Jo Shelby a white Tulsa, Okla., police officer was charged with first-degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16 shooting of Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old unarmed black man whose car was stopped in the middle of the road.

When looking at whether to file charges, authorities must determine if the officer believed he or she, or fellow officers, were in danger in the moment the decision is made to shoot. If the fear of danger is deemed reasonable, charges are typically not filed. To prove a serious charge such as murder, prosecutors must also show that the officer was not just reckless, but had ill intentions.