Watch: Dashcam video shows police officer shooting seated motorist
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Editor’s note: This story and video contain content that may be disturbing for some viewers. Discretion is advised.
(CNN) — What’s most shocking is how fast it happened.
It took just 40 seconds for an ordinary traffic stop to turn deadly — from a police officer saying “Hello, sir,” to him firing seven shots at a seated motorist.
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But the police dashboard camera video released Tuesday adds a visceral element to what police witnesses had described — unnerving even in the context of other police shootings and after a video taken by Philando Castile’s passenger went viral.
Until Tuesday, few people had seen the dashcam video from July 6, 2016, when Officer Jeronimo Yanez killed Castile in Minnesota. It was shown in court during Yanez’s trial.
He was acquitted Friday of one count of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of intentional discharge of firearm that endangers safety. Yanez testified he feared for his life because he believed Castile was pulling his own gun from his pocket. But prosecutors said Yanez was too quick to pull the trigger.
How the shooting unfolds
The nearly 10-minute video shows Yanez pulling over Castile on a wide street on a clear summer evening. Yanez approaches the white 1997 Oldsmobile and leans in to speak through the driver’s window. Another officer approaches but stands farther away on the passenger side.
Yanez tells Castile his brake lights are out.
The video does not show Yanez’s point of view or the inside of Castile’s car, where his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter were passengers.
Yanez asks for Castile’s driver’s license and insurance.
Thirty seconds into the conversation, Castile begins to tell Yanez that he has a weapon.
Castile: Sir, I have to tell you I do have a …
Yanez: OK.
Castile: … firearm on me.
Yanez: OK
Castile: I (inaudible)
Yanez: Don’t reach for it then.
Castile: I’m, I, I was reaching for …
Yanez: Don’t pull it out.
Castile: I’m not pulling it out.
Reynolds: He’s not.
Yanez: Don’t pull it out.
Yanez, whose hand had been near his gun, pulls out his weapon and fires seven rapid shots into the car, striking Castile five times.
Reynolds: You just killed my boyfriend.
Castile: I wasn’t reaching …
Reynolds: He wasn’t reaching.
Yanez: Don’t pull it out!
Reynolds: He wasn’t.
Yanez: Don’t move! (Expletive.)
Yanez is then heard shouting obscenities and breathing heavily as the tape continues.
The child exits the car amid the chaos, and the other officer picks her up.
Reynolds begins sharing a live video on Facebook, narrating in calm tones. She is told to exit the car and walk backward to an officer.
Officers are seen removing Castile from the car, placing him on the street, and treating him.
Others interview Yanez, who shouts obscenities repeatedly.
“I’m (expletive) up right now,” Yanez says at one point.
Yanez: I told him (sigh), ‘Can I see your license?’ And then he told me he had a firearm. I told him not to reach for it. And when he went down to grab, I told him not to reach for it. And then he kept it right there, and I told him to take his hand off of it. And then he, he had his grip a lot wider than a wallet.
Other officer: OK.
Yanez: And I don’t know where the gun was, he didn’t tell me where the (expletive) gun was.
Other officer: OK.
Yanez: And then it was just, getting hinky, he gave, he was just staring straight ahead and I was getting (expletive) nervous and then, I told him, I know, I know, (expletive) I told him to get his (expletive) hand off his gun.
Yanez gives a brief explanation of the events to a supervising officer on the scene. Yanez says he told Castile not to reach for the gun and that Castile’s “grip [was] a lot wider than a wallet.” Yanez continues, saying “I don’t know where the gun was. He didn’t tell me where the [expletive] gun was.”
Prosecutors: Yanez lost control
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Yanez as a nervous officer who lost control of his traffic stop. He was too quick to pull the trigger after learning Castile had a gun, based on an unreasonable suspicion that he was a robbery suspect, they said.
Yanez, then a St. Anthony officer, testified Castile put his hand on his firearm, not his wallet or identification papers, and was pulling the gun from his pocket.
“I didn’t want to shoot Mr. Castile,” Yanez testified. “That wasn’t my intention. I thought I was going to die.”
Castile’s fully loaded gun was found in his shorts pocket, Ramsey County prosecutors said.
Other key points
Joseph Kauser, an officer who arrived to provide backup, stood on the right side of Castile’s car with his thumbs hooked in a casual position on the inner armpit area of his bullet resistant vest.
He testified in St. Paul that he didn’t see a gun inside the car and didn’t hear most of the conversation between Yanez and Castile, who appeared calm and relaxed. Kauser said he was surprised when Yanez started shooting.
At trial, radio calls showed Yanez said he was going to stop a car to check IDs because two occupants look like armed robbery suspects. He says, “Driver looks more like one of our suspects just cause of the wide set nose. .. I couldn’t get a look at the other passenger, and I’ll wait for you.”
Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend who was in the passenger seat, said Castile was reaching for his driver’s license and registration, not the gun.
Her Facebook livestream captured Yanez yelling, “I told him not to reach for it!” and a bleeding Castile saying, “I wasn’t reaching for it.”
Protests, disbelief after acquittal
The verdict was met by protests Friday.
“How did a jury not see what the rest of the world did? And why does, and how could, this continue to happen? Will there ever be accountability?” CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson asked in a commentary Saturday.
One juror spoke to the media. Dennis Ploussard said jurors didn’t take their duties lightly and carefully considered the evidence. For much of the 27 hours of deliberation, all but two were in favor of acquittal.
According to CNN affiliate WCCO, Ploussard said that when jurors came to understand the definition of “culpable negligence,” they decided Yanez had acted as any other officer would.
The St. Anthony Police Department said shortly after the verdict that Yanez would no longer be with the police force.