The black driver killed by a Minnesota police officer during a seemingly routine traffic stop was licensed to carry a weapon — just as his fiancée said.
Philando Castile, 32, possessed a valid permit along with his gun when he was shot to death by Officer Jeronimo Yanez in suburban Falcon Heights, Minn., the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.
An attorney for the cop insisted Saturday, for the first time, that Yanez only fired after Castile, a beloved school cook, showed the gun as the cop stood by the driver’s side window.
Yanez “was reacting to the actions of the driver,” said lawyer Thomas Kelly. “This had nothing to do with race. This had everything to do with the presence of a gun . . . and the display of that gun.”
The attorney declined to provide any details on what specifically led the Latino officer to open fire on Castile as the victim sat behind the wheel of his car.
Kelly did not address whether Castile said anything about the gun or the permit before the shots were fired Wednesday evening. But Castile’s fiancée Diamond Reynolds, who was riding in the car with her 4-year-old daughter, has insisted from the outset that the slain man let Yanez know there was a firearm in the car.
“He’s licensed to carry, he was trying to get his ID … and he let the officer know he had a firearm,” Reynolds said on a live Facebook feed after the shooting.
Castile also announced that he was reaching for his wallet before Yanez, on the job five years, started blasting away, according to Reynolds.
Castile, pulled over by St. Anthony cops for a broken taillight, was struck multiple times from close range.
The live stream showed the dying man with blood spreading across his shirt — and the police providing no medical attention. Officers on the scene tended to the distraught Yanez as Castile sat untended.
Yanez and his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, 31, remain on paid administrative leave. Kauser approached the vehicle from the passenger’s side. Yanez, 28, who fired from the driver’s side is “saddened about the loss to Philando’s family,” his lawyer said.
Neither cop has been the subject of a lawsuit, according to the Star-Tribune.
Peaceful protests continued for a third day in Minnesota, with some 30 demonstrators gathering outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul.
The shooting occurred in the mostly white town of 5,000, which is policed by cops from neighboring St. Anthony.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, in an extraordinary rebuke of police, said flatly that he believed the handling of the traffic stop was based on Castile’s race.
“Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver, would have been white?” he asked one day after the killing. “I don’t think it would have. This kind of racism exists.”
The governor’s assertion appeared validated by a report that Minnesota police stopped Castile a staggering 52 times in the last 14 years.
The stops — averaging one every four months dating back to George Bush’s first year in the White House — resulted in 86 violations, the Associated Press reported.
Less than half of the charges were ever prosecuted, with Castile pleading guilty to minor counts that included driving with a revoked license and driving without proof of insurance.
All the citations were for petty misdemeanors or misdemeanors, and he paid a total of $6,588 in fines.
The charges most often dismissed were failure to wear a seat belt — along with driving without proof of insurance and driving with a revoked license.
Nationally, figures indicated that 13% of black drivers were pulled over in 2011 compared with 10% of white drivers, a U.S. Justice Department survey indicated.
While 84% of the white drivers felt the stop was legit, only 68% of the black drivers felt their stops were warranted.
