I want to discuss what Castile and Yanez did wrong that escalated the situation to the point where deadly force was used.  If you want to talk about Castile being a doper or Yanez being a JBT, take that shit to GD. I'll remind everyone that this is a tech forum, and if you start GD shit in this thread, I will rat you out to a Mod and look at you sternly.

While I know that it is CNN, this article has a pretty good transcript of the verbal interaction between Castile and Yanez during the encounter, and of Yanez's reaction after the event, as well as the dash cam video from the unit:  

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/20/us/philando-castile-shooting-dashcam/index.html


As you can see, the stop goes pretty normally at the start, but goes south at around the 30 second mark.  

I'll start with Castile, because that's the easier part and there's not a whole lot to talk about:
(not to mention being far more pertinent to CHL holders)

First off, he doesn't turn on his dome light.  Unless it's the middle of the day and there isn't a cloud in sight, turn on your dome light.

Second, he doesn't inform Yanez that he has a firearm right away.  Now, to be fair, MN is not a duty to inform state, so Castile didn't really have to say shit, but he did.

Third,  he keeps moving around after Yanez tells him to not reach for the gun.  Now, I think that he is reaching for his wallet; Yanez tells him "don't reach for the gun," and in his mind, Castile is thinking "I'm not reaching for the gun, I'm reaching for my wallet."  

Finally, Castile isn't looking at Yanez (this is from Yanez's comments after the shooting), so he's not aware when Yanez goes into condition red.


It's clear from his tone of voice (and his fairly colorful driving record) that Castile has been through this dance before, so he's probably a little complacent.  The routine probably goes something like this:
Get pulled over
Tell cop about gun
Show permit
Get ticket/warning
Move along

If he's nervous for some reason, his brain might default to learned behavior, so he's going to follow the script because that's how he has "trained".  Since he's going through the motions and not paying attention to Yanez, he doesn't notice that the minute he mentions "gun" Yanez goes to condition yellow and brings his hand to his gun.  Yanez's tone of voice is calm, so there's no audio indication that he's at a heightened alert state.  

At this point, they start talking past each other: Yanez sees him moving and assumes Castile is going for his gun, Castile isn't paying attention and doesn't realize that Yanez is about to shoot him, all the while saying "I'm not reaching for the gun" while Yanez is telling him "don't reach for the gun".  Five seconds later, it's BANG BANG BANG and lights out for ol' Philando.

Now, before I get into what I think Yanez did wrong, does what I wrote sound reasonable?

Before I start talking about Yanez, I want to consider his state of mind, because I suspect this was the deciding factor that got him out of a felony conviction.  Yanez stopped Castile because he suspected Castile might have been involved in an armed robbery.  Now, while nothing in his initial tone of voice or interactions with Castile indicate it, I have to believe that in the back of his mind, the possibility that there might be an armed felon in the car had to exist.

So, Yanez pulls Castile over, and the initial contact and interaction seem perfectly normal.  He's calm, Castile is calm and compliant, no problems.  However, the second Yanez hears the word "gun", he goes to condition yellow and reaches for his pistol.  At this point, he starts issuing orders, but they aren't exactly clear orders.  The transcript would seem to indicate that Castile is reaching for something, but instead of telling Castile to stop moving or to put his hands on the steering wheel, Yanez repeatedly says "don't reach for it".  It's almost like his brain short circuits and he's locked into interpreting all of Castile's actions as reaching for a gun. Castile isn't responding, and isn't looking at him, but he's still rooting around inside the car.

I thought this was kind of interesting, and reinforces my belief that Yanez was locked into the idea of Castile reaching for a gun, and that he didn't actually see a gun.  Castile could have been holding a MLP doll, and Yanez would have interpreted it as a gun.  I've seen enough "empty your pockets" threads on here to know that some people carry wallets that may as well be mini footballs; I'll bet Castile was one of those "fat wallet" retards.

Did you know that most guys carry their wallets on the right side?  Yanez could see that Castile had something in his hand, but he couldn't see what it was, nor did he see where Castile got it from.  He had already decided that Castile was going for a gun, and now that Castile had something in his hand, is it any surprise that Yanez's brain filled in the blanks?  In stressful situations, you're going to revert to your training: Yanez immediately goes from condition yellow to ZOMGWTFBBQ.  Five seconds later, it's BANG BANG BANG and lights out for ol' Philandro.

I believe the officer went in the situation with preconceptions and when he heard gun that spiked his reactivity to anything.  He overreacted to the situation without trying to deescalate.  It was like a drag race which is where I believe everything went wrong.  Nothing whatsoever leading up to the shooting lead me to believe the threat of Castile being violent or potentially violent ever precipitated, he was not rude snarky or agitated, and I think the officer needed more training to learn to read ques and people better.  

We will never know unless the former officer comes out and says it but he seemed to have way to many preconceptions going in.  On the announcement of concealed carrier and gun his first reaction should not have been hands on my gun.

Sounds about how I see it....   both could have done more to prevent the incident, but in my mind (as a ccw) I always keep the officers perception of my actions front and center in my brain.....  another discussion is there if Castile was inebriated, and not in the right frame of mind, but lets leave that to the side right now.   Point blank, itchy trigger finger or not, the CCW holder's failure to follow reasonable (at least to the officer's thinking) orders directly led to him being places in jeopardy.   

As far as Yanez, I think the only thing he could have done better was to aggressively take control of the situation (castile out of car, gun seized for the duration of the stop) and disarm castile.   This may have prevented the shooting, but would have fired up the dined nuttins cause yanez treated castile like a criminal......   The cop was in a bad situation, and unfortunately panicked.  

Tragedy to be sure, but I do not believe that the cop willfully overreacted......   Does he need help in dealing with stressful situations?  I dunno, Ill leave that up to LEO trainers to say, but I would be willing to bet a years pay that he would gladly have the chance to react differently in hindsight.  

The preconceptions is a major factor here. I've done thousands of traffic stops and dealt with dozens of chl holders. I always just asked where the gun is and then just started talking about guns with them. I never wrote a chl holder a ticket and never felt one was a threat. I honestly don't think Yanez heard anything else Castile said past 'gun' because his preconception was that Castile was a dirt bag. Yanez automatically assumed Castile was going for his gun and in his mind he thought he was about to die. So he went to condition red and shot Castile without ever actually seeing the gun.

You just cant drive around with a gun on your thigh.

I think that Yanez got brain locked into "felon with gun mode" the second he heard the word "gun".  While Castile said he had a gun, he never said he had a permit (or maybe he did and it just didn't get picked up on the mike).  Regardless, I suspect Yanez stopped processing any information other than the movement of Castile's hand after he heard the word "gun".  It's unfortunate, because now Castile's dead and Yanez's life is probably ruined.

If you had bothered to read the linked article, you would know that Castile's gun was found in his pocket.  Nowhere in any of the pictures was there a gun seen on his person.  Yanez said he did not see a gun.

Regardless, open carry is allowed in Minnesota with a CCL, so yes, you can drive around with a gun on your thigh, or tucked between your legs, or taped to your forehead for that matter.

Hard to argue with that, young less experienced officer, and in the political climate of the time he was probably cowed to not be aggressive in handling an escalation. (IE--after he hears "gun"-- sir get out of the car and keep your hands where i can see them... etc etc)

In addition and fitting with your hypothesis, his lack of experience locked him into "bad guy possible bank robber, threatens me with gun"..  I can totally see where the stress could make him feel that.....   The problem is that he did not have the experience of forethought to find a different way out of the problem (I am convinced that a large part of this is due to the police walking on egg shells so they don't piss anyone off).  This, compounded by a victim that did not seem to be completely cooperative (at least by yanez's situational awareness), began the descent spiral that ended up getting a man shot.   

Its a tough call to MM quarterback, and while I can speculate till the cows come home, I must trust that the jury (who had much better information than we do) made the correct decision.  

I do think (unlike the Darren Wilson/Mike Brown shoot) that yanez may be a little high strung for police work (certainly after this).  He is getting an unfair shake by the media for his mistakes, just like Officer Wilson was crucified for doing everything right.  End all to be all, the socialists in the country are hampering our decent law enforcement, which allows people into the job that do not have the proper temperament for policing.....  

I am all for nailing a dirty cop, but we cannot do so at the sake of crucifying those who wear the uniform honorably, even when they make dumb mistakes.  We must stand by honorable LEOs and purge the Barney Fifes........

That's why my windows down, license, insurance, registration all in my hands with both my hands on the wheel with the keys on my dash. I've been doing that since I was 16 and my dad taught me what to do.

That way I don't have to reach either behind me for my wallet or into the glove compartment.

I was talking to a black shooter at my range last week. He was in the process of getting his carry permit and asked how I handle cops at traffic stops. When I told him he nodded as it was the first time he's ever heard all that.

you assumed he'd gotten pulled over carrying before.

How is being high as fuck while carrying a gun NOT relevant to the ability to use it legally, morally, and without issue?

I put all my firearms away before I have one drop alcohol.  This is step zero out of the first ten steps to following the law and good practices.

You sure are getting combative for a guy wanting to start a more level headed discussion in a tech forum.

If you look at the totality of the stuff the witnesses said about where the gun was, and watched the video, it makes total sense that he was manipulating it in (against the officer's orders) to get his wallet.  Which is sort of a mistake when an officer is screaming at you not to touch it.

There is SOMETHING on his lap in the video the girlfriend took.  We never found out what it was during trial.

Really? You can't have a single beer without a gun in sight?

Dont reach around guns. Dont leave then near wallets, license, registration, or on your thigh.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/07/13/philando-castile-wallet-positioned-underneath-visible-hand-gun/amp/

His gun wasn't visible.

His gun was found in his right pocket.  So, did he take it from his lap and put it back in his pocket after he was shot, or did Yanez pick up the gun and put it in his pocket after he shot Castile?  Or possibly the object seen in the video isn't a gun.  It's probably a cell phone; wouldn't be the first time someone got shot because a stressed out cop mistook a cell phone for a gun.

Also, Yanez didn't tell Castile not to touch his gun, he told him not to pull it out.  That might be splitting hairs, but again, it goes back to my assertion that Yanez did not give clear instructions.

The point is we don't really know.  The GF wasn't able or didn't articulate it.

Where his gun was FOUND is not relevant.  He was dragged out of the vehicle while wearing lose fitting athletic shorts, it's easy for a heavy object to slide back to the bottom of the pocket in that case. It could have been what we saw in the video if his pants were half way off and they are light fabric athletic pants with big pockets, and still ended up where it was found later.

Nobody is asserting that Castile was actually intending on pulling out the gun, or had intent to harm the police officer. Only that he had the APPEARANCE and ACTIONS that could be construed that way.

In confusion like that, the proper thing to do is not assume anything, stop ACTING (reaching) and ask for clarification.  Talk first, have a meeting of minds on what's going on and what happens next, THEN act when it's agreed on what to do next.

This is really simple shit that most people get right, if they aren't brain damaged by pot needles that is.

That's a bit of a reach, don't you think?  How many times have you gotten out of a car normally and had stuff fall out of your pockets?  You actually think a partially drawn gun is going to fall back into the pocket while the person wearing the pants is being dragged out of the car?

The flip side of that argument is that Yanez overreacted to a perceived threat that didn't actually exist.  It's clear that he thought Castile was pulling out a gun with the intent to use it against him.  If there was a critical error here, I think this was it: he completely misidentified the situation.  However, even under his misidentified scenario, there are things that he might have done differently.  

The one time I had to pull a gun on someone, I didn't end up shooting him, despite his best efforts to the contrary.  I knew he had a gun (dude had just tried to shoot someone around the corner from my house), and he wasn't doing what I was telling him to do.  Right as I'm about to shoot him in the face, I say "don't fucking move".  As it turns out, those were the three magic words that saved his life, because he stopped fucking moving.  In retrospect, I realized that I wasn't giving concise, simple commands that could not be misinterpreted.   Now, to be fair, I didn't know that saying "don't fucking move" would save the little shithead's life, but then again, I'm not a cop, and I never got all that fancy training that cop brass is always claiming they have.  I'm guessing Yanez didn't get that training either, or it might have saved him a world of grief.

Under the circumstances, I would say that the onus was on Yanez to control the situation. He panicked and lost (or at least perceived that he had lost) control of the situation, and then... choose poorly.

FTR, as it turns out, the little shit didn't have a gun on him, he had ditched it sometime between trying to kill someone and jumping my fence to hide from the cops (well, one fat NOPD with a shitty flashlight and a bunch of gung ho National Guard).

Lol. Good job keeping it real in the tech forums.

We know the officer thought he was going to draw the gun, we don't know if it was or not. 

Well I am glad for you that you didn't shoot and the guy you had to pull the gun on wasn't high as fuck and was able to follow lawful orders. I don't get what that has to do with the Philando Castile case though.  Was your guy all hopped up on drugs?

I have no idea if the guy I almost shot was on drugs or not.  I gave him an order.  He did not do it.  I gave him a simpler order.

There is no indication that Castile was high.  There is no testimony to that effect.  Show me where Yanez testified or indicated that he thought Castile was high or impaired, and I'll reconsider my analysis of what happened during that traffic stop.  

Are you asserting that Yanez did absolutely nothing wrong, and the entire onus of the events was on Castile?

Castile had a ton of tickets, I think it's a safe bet that he had been pulled over while carrying more than once.

It was an avoidable situation. Should be a lesson to both police and civilians. When a cop yells to not reach for a gun the logical course of action is not to reach for anything.

It's been politicized to death, and I'm a little sick of hearing about it.

One man is dead and the other has to live with it.

I've been a peace officer for 24 years, both for a large municipality and the state.  What confuses me the most is that the officer asserted this was a possibly a robbery suspect but both officers approached in a manner that would only be appropriate if you stopped a bus-full of nuns on Easter Sunday.  I'm just baffled by this. I have also been a civilian that was disarmed by a LEO while carrying with a CHL during my time away from LE, by a very shaky elderly Sheriff (not a deputy).  I think this case warrants a great deal of study by LE Psychs because I think there was some sort of mental disconnect where the officer set everything else including the CHL aside and focused on Castille as a threat.  In a similar fashion, the Oscar Grant shooting shows that under some stressful situations, an officer may make mistakes as a limitation of what the brain can reasonably process under the circumstances.  I think this was a horrific tragedy in that you had two individuals, neither was a bad guy with ill intent, who both should have moved on to other exploits the day this happened but one ended up dead.  The best solution I've heard was on guntalk a few weeks ago. This was for the carrier to restate the situation and ask permission from the officer before making any moves.  "Officer, I have my CHL.  Are you asking me to take my wallet out of my back pocket?  This is near my holster, I would be happy to exit and let you remove my wallet."  I've also been stopped while working plainclothes operations, while looking pretty shabby in a crappy neighborhood because I looked suspicious.  Once while I had my gun in my hand under a shirt on the front seat due to the nature of the operation.  Another time I had a PD roll up while I was off duty pointing a gun at a suspect because the suspect had his hand on a weapon inside of a backpack and I had a few seconds to convince a patrolman who didn't know me that I wasn't a threat but the guy on the ground was.  These are highly complicated situations, and it was very difficult not to apply my experiences to Yanez' scenario and armchair quarterback him. 

I think your assessment of the situation is probably reasonably accurate. While I can see in hindsight that it doesn't seem likely from the dialog that Castile was pulling a gun I have also seen plenty of situations where someone is saying they aren't doing the very thing they are in fact doing. How many times do we see someone resisting arrest all the while telling how they aren't resisting.

I got into an argument the other day with someone over this subject. Granted the other guy is known to be somewhat anti cop and I'm extremely Pro  law enforcement.  
   Anyway I basically ended with- we will never know because we were not there. No body cam either soooo who really knows what was going on with his hand on the weapon or not etc etc.
   All I know for sure is that I could hear the officer give a command multiple times and then gun shots.
  You would think that when being pulled over you are automatically more alert because you don't want a ticket. If a cop is yelling at me to do whatever, then I sure as shit am going to listen.

  Not sure if true or not but I met a guy the other day that "claims" to have worked in the same police department.  He "says" that the driver was stoned and the media never reported it? Also claims the cop got a huge paycheck when he resigned from the department. A ton more than the media claimed.
   Who knows if true or not I only talked to the guy for a few min. For all I know he doesn't even live in the same state.

I have been troubled over this shooting, and this is a very informative thread, with LEO opinions and all.

I NEVER mention guns when I'm stopped. I'm ALWAYS carrying. There is no need for me to say anything in the states I drive in, and Wyoming has constitutional carry, so I'm guessing that LEO's here have long ago come to terms with the fact that they will be dealing with a lot of folks carrying guns.

Like I said, I never bring up the topics of guns. My feeling is that we will then be thinking about guns, and not the broken taillight on my horse trailer, or whatever. Nothing good can come of volunteering that information. And I have been stopped a few times and everything went fine.

I rarely have my wallet in my pocket. When I'm stopped I try to remember to fish it out of wherever it is and toss it on the dash. Last time I didn't remember.

I'm told that LEO's will see your permit when they run your plates or license. I don't know about that.
After watching the video and reading everything I can find, my opinion is that the cop overreacted.
I'd be interested to know why folks feel the need to volunteer the information that they have a gun when it isn't required.

I'm with everybody else. I think he screwed up and was reaching for his license or permit or whatever in an effort to comply as quickly as possible , AS the officer was telling him to not reach for his gun. I also think the officer over reacted to a guy who seemed to be pretty calm and not combative.

Not sure about others, but I live in a duty to inform state, so my natural inclination is to let the officer know.  The few times that I've been stopped, it has been uneventful, but I make sure I have my license and permit in hand before they get to my window.  I was disarmed once, but they were were not aggressive about it and nobody was shot. It was a little weird, though: they asked me to step out of the car so they could disarm me, then asked me to open the trunk so they could place the gun in there (of course, it could have been an excuse to look in the trunk of the car). Traffic stop proceeded normally from there, I got a warning, and they just asked that I not retrieve the gun until after they had left.  Funny thing is that I ran into them at a Mexican restaurant about 20 minutes later.