Officer Claimed He Shot Philando Castile Because of Secondhand Smoke
As you probably know, the officer who killed Philando Castile was acquitted of manslaughter and two other charges last week. (This was the incident where Castile's girlfriend streamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook.) The squad car's dashcam video was made public yesterday for the first time, and watching that makes it even less possible (if that's possible) to understand the jury's decision. But even more astounding is the transcript also released yesterday showing that the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, told investigators last year that he smelled marijuana as he approached the car, and that just before he opened fire, the thought going through his mind was that Castile was a dangerous man because he had been exposing others to secondhand smoke:
That is actually something an adult human said: I was afraid this person would be willing to murder a police officer for no reason because it smelled like he had been doing something that might slightly increase the risk of disease to others if he kept it up for another decade or so. (At least according to some experts.) If this man is willing to subject others to secondhand smoke, certainly he would not hesitate to murder me.
This deep concern that Yanez had about the health of the five-year-old is supposedly part of what led him to fire seven bullets at Castile, the driver, while the girl was sitting in the back seat in the line of fire:
Or maybe he was pulling out a pack of smokes? We shouldn't second-guess officers when it comes to using deadly force to protect citizens from potential long-term health risks.
In fact, Castile had just volunteered the fact that he had a gun in the car (a gun he was licensed to carry), which doesn't seem like something you'd do if you were just about to reach for it and try to shoot someone. It actually seems like something you'd do if you didn't want anybody to get hurt, especially yourself. But according to Yanez, it was secondhand smoke, not this, that went through his mind just before opening fire.
Of course, I don't know what other evidence was presented to the jury. The Ramsey County Attorney's Office has put the transcript, videos, and some other key evidence on its website, so you can see that if you want and decide for yourself. But I assume the jury saw the transcript of this interview, and frankly I don't know how you hear somebody give that ridiculous explanation and not vote to convict him of something. (The jury was apparently split 10-2 in favor of acquittal, but eventually the two holdouts gave in.)
I guess if you wanted to, you could argue that now we know the risks of secondhand smoke really are substantial, because among other things it might frighten a cop into putting five bullets in your chest. You might as well give it a shot, because the risks of making stupid arguments appear to be virtually nonexistent these days.
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