Shocking video of police shooting wasn’t enough to convict police officer

MINNEAPOLIS — The release of dashboard video in the shooting death of Philando Castile renewed anger over his death and reopened an emotional question: How could the police officer who shot him have been acquitted?

But even with the shocking squad-car footage, prosecutors faced a challenge because no video showed exactly what happened inside Castile’s car. That left plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

The dashboard video made public for the first time Tuesday showed events that had been described many times since Castile was killed by Officer Jeronimo Yanez nearly a year ago. For many viewers, the graphic scene of gunfire striking a black driver during a seemingly simple traffic stop served only to make last week’s verdict harder to understand.

Yanez was the first of two police officers to be acquitted in a killing in less than a week. The only two jurors who have spoken publicly about the Minnesota case acknowledged the impact of the video, which they saw during the trial. But they said prosecutors failed to prove that Yanez acted with “culpable negligence,” the legal standard needed to support a conviction for second-degree manslaughter in Minnesota.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the jury would have to conclude that no reasonable officer would have acted as Yanez did under the same circumstances, said local defense attorney Joe Tamburino, who was not involved in the case.

The video showed the Latino officer politely telling Castile that his brake light was out. After Castile handed over his insurance card, he calmly said, “Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.”

Before Castile finished that sentence, the Latino officer, who testified that he thought Castile looked like a suspect in a robbery a few days earlier, began pulling his weapon out of its holster.

With his voice initially composed, Yanez said: “OK. Don’t reach for it then,” but then the stress in his voice grew as he ordered, “Don’t pull it out” before suddenly firing seven shots into the car, which also held Castile’s girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter.

Castile and Reynolds both told the officer that Castile was not reaching for his gun. Before he was shot, Castile said “I’m not pulling it out.” And his last words, after the shooting, were “I wasn’t reaching ...” Reynolds later said Castile was reaching for his wallet.

Prosecutors said that the gun was still in Castile’s pocket when paramedics removed him from his car.