MINNEAPOLIS _ For the first time since he fatally shot Philando Castile following a traffic stop 11 months ago, St. Anthony Police officer Jeronimo Yanez told the public his version of the events.
Yanez testified Friday that he felt his life was in danger when he saw Castile had a gun and ignored orders not to reach for it.
"I thought I was going to die," Yanez said, testifying in his own defense on charges of manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm. "I had no other choice. I was forced to engage Mr. Castile. He was not complying with my directions."
His attorney, Tom Kelly, asked Yanez if he wanted to shoot Castile the night of July 6.
Yanez began crying.
"I did not want to shoot Mr. Castile at all," he replied. "Those were not my intentions."
He said the shooting still upsets him to this day, then he wiped the tears away from his face with a tissue.
The St. Anthony police officer testified that four days earlier he was the second on the scene at a robbery of a nearby gas station, and watched video of two black men with guns. He said the officers were instructed to be on the lookout for the suspects. Four days later, on July 6, he was parked in his squad car when he saw Castile drive by. He said they made eye contact.
"He gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look," Yanez said. "It's a trigger."
Yanez said that gave him "strong suspicions" about Castile, and believed he could be one of the robbery suspects.
He radioed his partner, Joseph Kauser, to tell him about the potential suspect.
"I'm going to stop a car," Yanez told Kauser that night. "I'm going to check IDs. I have reason to pull it over. The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery," he said.
"The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just because of the wide-set nose."
Also in the car with Castile was his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter.
Yanez told the jury that when he saw Castile driving with a broken brake light, that gave him reason to pull him over.
He said he could smell marijuana coming from Castile's car as he was walking up to it. He asked for Castile's license and registration and told him about the brake light. Castile gave him his registration, then told Yanez he had a gun. Yanez told the jury that he saw Castile reaching his hand down.
"I told him, 'Don't pull it out,'" Yanez said.
He said Castile made a C-shape with his right hand. Yanez said he tried to distract him, but "he continued to pull his firearm out of his pocket."
When he saw Castile pull out the top of the gun, "that's when I engaged Mr. Castile and shot him."
Yanez said when he saw Castile's gun, "my family popped into my head. My wife. My baby girl."
The prosecution is cross-examining Yanez Friday afternoon.
Earlier Friday, in a dramatic courtroom demonstration, a use of force expert testifying for Yanez placed a replica of Castile's handgun into the pocket of a pair of shorts like the ones Castile was wearing when he was shot. Jurors could see that the gun filled the pocket, with the butt visibly protruding.
Defense expert Emanuel Kapelsohn said Yanez would have "easily" seen the butt of the gun while standing outside Castile's car during the traffic stop last year that quickly turned fatal.
"That places the butt of the gun right here where the slash of the pocket is," Kapelsohn said. "It's right there. I can just easily reach in with a couple of fingers and the gun is right there.
"That's as big as that pocket is, and as big as the gun is."
Prosecutor Jeffrey Paulsen later tried to knock the wind out of Kapelsohn's display, calling it a "little demonstration," but seemed to lose direction in discrediting the evidence. The replica gun and shorts were previously introduced by prosecutors as evidence because the original items are biohazards.
Kapelsohn's turn on the witness stand came on the second day of testimony in the defense's case. Kapelsohn testified that he reviewed evidence in the case, visited the shooting scene, sat in Castile's car and bought his own replica shorts, gun and holster to carry out tests.
Kapelsohn said that it took him about 1/3 of a second to draw a gun from the shorts, and that an officer typically takes longer _ about { a second _ to respond to a threat. Yanez had reason to shoot Castile because Castile failed to follow the officer's orders ("don't reach for it") and reached his right hand toward his right thigh, Kapelsohn testified. Castile's gun was later found in his right front shorts pocket.
"Apparently, the officer perceived that Mr. Castile was pulling the gun out," Kapelsohn said. "He's justified in (using deadly force), and he's trained to do so. He'd be remiss if he didn't do so."
Yanez, 29, is charged in Ramsey County with manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm for killing Castile, 32, during the traffic stop in Falcon Heights. Reynolds livestreamed the aftermath on Facebook, setting off nationwide outrage.
Even if Castile were pulling out his wallet, as Reynolds contends, Kapelsohn said, Yanez was justified in shooting him under the circumstances. Kapelsohn later noted that Castile's handgun was black and his wallet was brightly colored, making the distinction between them obvious.
