Minnesota shooting death of Philando Castile: Officers Jeronimo Yanez, Joseph Kauser identified

Yesterday, the aftermath of the tragic shooting of Philando Castile was shown to the world in a history-making Facebook Live broadcast.

The Minnesota cop who pulled Philando Castile over before shooting and killing him Wednesday did not actually pull him over for a broken tail light as was first reported. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, says that after their vehicle had been pulled over, Castile had simply informed the officer that he was carrying a legal firearm and reached to provide his driver’s license and registration as he had been asked, when the officer started shooting, utlimately firing four times.

State investigators identified the officer who shot him as Jeronimo Yanez, a four-year veteran of the St Anthony Police Department. Their races are not known, though Reynolds described the officer who shot Castile as Asian.

Yanez “was reacting to the actions of the driver”, Kelly said.

“This has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the presence of a gun”, Kelly said.

Police pulled Castile and Reynolds over in a traffic stop Wednesday evening in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, near Minneapolis.

It’s been 48 hours since the fatal shooting of Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn., near St. Paul, and there have yet to be any real updates. At one point during the interaction, Officer Yanez discharged his weapon, striking Castile multiple times.

According to Kelly, Yanez is a “sensitive man” who has been very distressed about the entire incident, and is now on administrative leave from the St. Anthony Police Department.

She said she still can’t believe what happened to him.

His comments came a day after Dayton declared that police likely wouldn’t have fired if Castile’s skin were a different color. Paul area since 2002. About 30 protesters formed a circle in the street late in the morning as an organizer pray for peace and togetherness. The next night, Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria manager, was killed in Falcon Heights, where his girlfriend broadcast his final moments in real time on Facebook.

Protesters remained there Friday and Dayton said he had no plans to order police to remove them.

The department, however, is taking another approach on the case of Alton Sterling, a black man who was fatally shot by police in the southern state of Louisiana.

The family said they still have not seen Castile’s body, but expect to be able to later Friday.

Nekima Levy-Pounds, a civil rights attorney and president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told BuzzFeed News that activists responded quickly to news of Castile’s death. He died a short time later at a hospital.

“Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver were white?”

Jackson led the crowd of more than 100 in a series of call-and-response chants, saying, “I am somebody”. The gun was sacked, his hand reached up behind his back, I think, and then it stopped and I knew he must be dead.

“You shot four bullets into him, sir”.