APNewsBreak: Cop’s lawyer blames driver’s gun, not his race

Kelly, an attorney for Jeronimo Yanez, the police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Minnesota this week, issued a statement on behalf of the officer.

A lawyer for the Latino cop who killed a black motorist in Minnesota this week says the officer reacted to the man’s gun, not his race, the Associated Press reports.

On Wednesday, July 6, Castile was in a vehicle with his girlfriend and her young daughter when they were pulled over for a routine traffic stop.

“He told him that it was in his wallet, but he had a pistol on him because he’s licensed to carry”, Castile’s fiancée Diamond Reynolds calmly said in livestreamed video of the bad minutes after a St. Paul cop shot him.

Reynolds said Castile, a school cafeteria supervisor, was shot five times as he reached into his back pocket to get his ID after informing the officer that he had a firearm he was licensed to carry.

The officer is now not living at his home in Vandals Heights, Minn., north of St. Paul, Kelly says, because of the attention he’s received since the shooting. Both are four-year veterans of the St. Anthony force.

Kelly wouldn’t elaborate on what led up to the shooting, citing a pending investigation. At one point during the exchange, Yanez fired his weapon, striking Castile multiple times, according to the BCA. Reynolds claimed the officer had pulled them over ostensibly for a busted taillight.

“You shot four bullets into him, sir”.

“I advised him that he should probably remove himself”, Kelly told Time.

The shooting in Minnesota came a day after another black man, Alton Sterling, was killed by police during a confrontation outside of a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, convenience store. Paul area since 2002.

Sterling’s and Castile’s families have denounced the Dallas officers’ killings. “He was just getting his license and registration, sir”, Reynolds calmly responds.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said several videos, including squad auto video, have been collected, though St. Anthony officers don’t wear body cameras.

Yanez is a Latino from South St. Paul, and has been an officer for nearly five years, according to Kelly, who added that the officer graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

“His lifelong ambition was to be a police officer”, Kelly says. “He’s very saddened about the loss to Philando’s family and recognizes the tragedy of the whole event”.