The July 6 traffic stop that led to Philando Castile’s death happened in part because Castile matched the description of an armed robbery suspect, an attorney representing Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony Police Department officer who shot Castile numerous times, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
It’s not clear exactly which robbery the attorney was referring to, but on July 5, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension posted a news release about an armed robbery that took place not far from where Castile was gunned down the next day. The release, which includes surveillance images of the robbers, states that the St. Anthony PD was looking for help finding two black suspects, both with long dreadlocks not dissimilar from the ones worn by Castile.
The account given by Yanez’s attorney seems to be corroborated by unverified police dispatch audio of the traffic stop published by the Twin Cities’ NBC affiliate. In the audio recording, an officer can be heard saying, “The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery… The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just ’cause of the wide set nose.” (Reached by ThinkProgress, law enforcement officials didn’t verify the legitimacy of the recording, but the NBC affiliate reports that both the location of the stop and the plate number reported by the officer match up with where and what Castile was driving at the time of his death.)
The Officers Who Killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile May Not Be Punished. Here’s Why.The deaths of Alton Sterling this week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota have…thinkprogress.orgAn Associated Press analysis found that Castile, 32, was pulled over an astonishing 52 times between 2002 and his death. About half of the 86 violations assessed against him were ultimately dismissed, and he was never convicted of anything more serious than a misdemeanor.
Research indicates that Castile’s experience in that regard probably isn’t unique. Published in 2003, the most recent statewide study of the role race plays in traffic stops in Minnesota found that blacks were significantly more likely to be pulled over and searched than whites. The problem was particularly acute in suburbs like the one Castile was stopped in on July 6, where in some jurisdictions blacks were more than three times more likely to be stopped.
“These patterns suggest a strong likelihood that racial/ethnic bias plays a role in traffic stop policies and practices in Minnesota,” the Minnesota Statewide Racial Profiling Report found. “The same is true for the searches that result from these stops. Taken together, these patterns warrant serious examination. It is fair to conclude that the problems that they suggest are not isolated to a handful of jurisdictions or present only in those jurisdictions that chose to participate in this study.”
More recently, a Bureau of Justice Statistics study of 2011 traffic stops found that nationwide, a higher percentage of black drivers (13 percent) than white drivers (10 percent) were stopped by police. Blacks were also three times more likely to be searched.
Gun Activist Says He Warned PD Involved In Philando Castile Shooting About Shady Traffic StopsJustice by CREDIT: facebook About two years ago, Joe Olson was pulled over by a St. Anthony Police Department squad car…thinkprogress.orgWhile profiling may have been the reason Castile was pulled over on July 6, the officer who shot him says it was the presence of a gun that resulted in him opening fire. After Officer Yanez approached his vehicle, Castile was shot while reaching for something. His girlfriend, who broadcast the aftermath of the shooting live on Facebook, said Castile informed the officer that he was lawfully carrying a gun and was simply reaching for his license when shots rang out. But in an interview with the Star Tribune, Thomas Kelly, the attorney representing Officer Yanez, suggests the story isn’t so simple.
“This has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the presence of a gun,” Kelly said. “Deadly force would not have been used if not for the presence of a gun.”
In addition to being more likely to be pulled over, black people are also more likely to be killed by a police officer. According to data the Guardian has compiled, of the 571 people killed by police in America so far in 2016, blacks have died at more than twice the rate as whites.
That reality was acknowledged by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) last week. During a news conference about the shooting, Dayton said he believed the longtime Castile, a longtime St. Paul public schools employee that many have described as a role model for kids, would still be alive had he been white.
“So I’m forced to confront, and I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront, [that] this kind of racism exists,” Dayton said.