Jayohv

Was this statement:

"And I thought if he’s, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the five year old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing then what, what care does he give about me. And, I let off the rounds and then after the rounds were off, the little girls was screaming."

discussed much in the courtroom?

I mean, how does one maintain any credibility after such an absurd utterance?

Maybe you are not the person with the answer to this, but it seems like everyone is hung up on if Yanez saw a gun or not. I don't really see what difference it makes if the gun is deep in Castile's pocket or if Yanez saw part of it coming out.

Either way, he knew there was a gun because Castile told him so. So what difference does the inch in or out of pocket make? In or slightly out of the pocket are both a long way from being a threat to the officer, especially given Castile's announcement of carrying, which would make little sense if his intentions were nefarious.

So what we have, in totality, is Yanez shooting Castile because there was a gun present. Not pointed at him, not close to being pointed at him, not in the hands of an otherwise aggressive suspect, but merely present in the hands of a cooperative person. There was nothing else to make Yanez feel threatened, so again, we only have the presence of a gun to justify him fearing for his life, and giving him just cause to shoot. That is a scary thought.

Was this addressed at trial?

great bass playing back in 89!!

First of all, thank you for doing this AMA.

I know the transcript was not introduced, does that mean the jurors never heard any mention of its contents, specifically the remark about secondhand smoke ?

I am sitting at a restaurant right now and a gentleman at the table next to us has a pistol on his waist. He could draw it and shoot me and less than a second.

I have no more reason to believe he will shoot me then the officer had to believe that Castile would shoot him.

Even if somebody came up to me and whispered in my ear and told me that the man at the table next to me smokes with his kids in the car, which would put me at equal threat that the officer faced, I still don't think I would fear for my life and shoot him.