Profiling and panic

After a Minnesota police officer fatally shot school cafeteria manager Philando Castile, his girlfriend, inexplicably handcuffed in the back of a squad car with her 4-year-old daughter, screamed in despair. The girl begged Diamond Reynolds to keep quiet, saying, “I don’t want you to get shooted.” Later, as Reynolds struggled with the cuffs, her daughter repeated the plea: “No, please, don’t! I don’t want you to get shooted!”

The terrible lesson of Castile’s death — that a police officer might kill a black person for any or no reason — was clear enough for a toddler. And yet the footage of the exchange was released the week after the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, was acquitted.

A jury cleared Yanez in the killing, which became notorious when Reynolds broadcast its aftermath on Facebook Live, despite having watched another newly released video of the shooting itself. It captures Castile, stopped on the pretext of broken brake lights because his “wide-set nose” reminded Yanez of a robbery suspect, calmly informing the officer of his legally registered firearm — a precaution recommended by gun-rights advocates and not expected of anyone planning to shoot a cop. Nevertheless, within 40 seconds of telling Castile about his faulty lights, Yanez fires seven bullets into the car.

It’s difficult to imagine what precipitated this outcome other than profiling and panic. Castile had been stopped by police at least 52 times since 2002 and cited for 86 minor violations, half of them dismissed. Yanez told investigators that the odor of marijuana in the car convinced him that Castile was capable of murder.

Since 2015, juries, judges and prosecutors have excused police officers for dubious killings of black men and youths in New York, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Louisiana and Oklahoma. While the specifics differ in each case, the general impression of prejudice and impunity is unmistakable.