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Officer Yanez Found Not Guilty On All Counts In Castile’s Death

celljean89

Neo Member
This is what the police are. An extremely violent, well equipped, and organized cartel. Look at the billions of dollars seized without cause over the years, in addition to the wanton murder and destruction wrought against minorities and the disenfranchised. Nearly every encounter with law enforcement is terrifying when you know it could easily be your last.

Yes agreed, every encounter with cops is scary as fuck for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to have panic attack when I encounter a cop. It don't even matter where I am at, or how I dress, or even how I act. Even if I just shuck and jive to the cops, it's gamble.
 

Dipper145

Member
I feel like I must have missed something about this case (was there body cam footage or something of the whole event? or just the cellphone video of post-shooting?), but I feel not guilty on all counts seems a little crazy to me.

But these cases are generally a "whos side of the story does the jury believe more" which in this case was the cop vs the passenger. And generally, one is going to believe the cops statements about the situation because they are a cop and supposed to uphold the law.


Jesus christ...
 

Imm0rt4l

Member
"What happens when instead of becoming enraged and shocked every time a Black person is killed in the United States, we recognize Black death as a predictable and constitutive aspect of this democracy?

What will happen then if instead of demanding justice we recognize (or at least consider) that the very notion of justice ... produces and requires Black exclusion and death as normative?"

– Joy James & Joāo Costa Vargas, "Refusing Blackness-as-Victimization: Trayvon Martin and the Black Cyborgs"



Forever relevant
 
And its not like he was on the hook for murder, but for second degree manslaughter and recklessness.

How the fuck does that not apply to these circumstances?

Man do I wish we could hear some audio of these deliberations, because I don't see what leg there is to stand on here, or how the jury could rationalize their verdict even among themselves.
 
People are way too comfy to protest against anything they perceive as unfair or unjust in America. There should be more outrage over this but it'll be forgotten about and just added to a growing list of injustices while everyone else goes about glued to their phones or watching Netflix. Not to draw attention away from this story, but look at everything happening in the USA right now, there should be protests all the time!

Whatever (Goes back to playing video games)

----

Obviously, I don't really think whatever; but I can't really see anything changing unless there is mass protest that lasts longer than a day and or possible violence. And even then I think things are too set in stone.
 
The video just after his death was one of the most chilling ones I'd ever seen. To think that a jury couldn't convict even then. No one should be surprised when the dam eventually breaks and people try to fight back with violence instead of litigation and words. Radical left is gonna pop the fuck off.
 

Maddness

Member
Wow, I thought this one would at the VERY LEAST be a case where the evidence was so clear cut and dry and in fucking video that there was at least a sure deal hope that one of these fuckers would pay for their crimes, but nope.

So wtf happened? Did the judge instruct the jury before hand to throw out any and all logic, common sense, decency, humanity when making this impartial decision, or did the jury just think that the fact that the man had been high he was putting the cops life in danger of inhaling the smoke of a gateway drug and falling into a life of drugs and despair hence needing to defend his very life?

Fuck this planet.
 

Enzom21

Member

Shocking!
See this is the reason we were wary of the all white jury during the rapist cop trial.

The video just after his death was one of the most chilling ones I'd ever seen. To think that a jury couldn't convict even then. No one should be surprised when the dam eventually breaks and people no longer try to fight back with violence instead of litigation and words. Radical left is gonna pop the fuck off.

The victim was black and the jury was mostly white. There is no real shocker here.
 
I feel like I must have missed something about this case (was there body cam footage or something of the whole event? or just the cellphone video of post-shooting?), but I feel not guilty on all counts seems a little crazy to me.

But these cases are generally a "whos side of the story does the jury believe more" which in this case was the cop vs the passenger. And generally, one is going to believe the cops statements about the situation because they are a cop and supposed to uphold the law.

A cop could come to my house right now, have it 100% be 1080p/60 perfect audio via a camera, shoot me dead at my doorstep without saying a word and would get off scott free since I'm a black man and am a walking terrifying threat by default.

That said big ups to Rhode Island for having no officer involved fatal shootings in 2015, and as far as I know 2016. We still have some racist ass cops but I don't expect to be shot for walking down the wrong street in my state. In stark contrast to the way I have felt when a cop stopped me while walking in a nicer Chicago suburb recently saying "you look like you don't belong here" while he looked equally pissed and scared, or when I was in Cleveland two years ago and a cop pointed his gun at me and called me a faggot when I laughed at him trip into the side of his car walking out of a convenience store.
 

KarmaCow

Member
This one makes no fucking sense.
How could they come to this conclusion?
We all saw the videos!

Just listen to prologue of the This American Life episode where a reporter showed the video of Eric Garner's murder to her cop friend to understand the warped reality some cops have been trained to see the world. It's not a leap to understand how verdicts like this happen when you have people who think the police are infallible, especially in their accounts of events. The sprinkling of crack marijuana just completes the narrative of a good cop who had no choice but to shoot the junkie who could have snapped at any moment.
 
So he is bad at his job, just not bad enough to go to jail?

Nah, it's not even that they're saying he's bad at his job, just that this kind of high profile event means the public (rightfully) wont trust him, making him incapable of doing his job even though the department considers him innocent.
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
The criminal justice system in this country is so messed up.

Reading the article - I can tell you what probably led to the not guilty

Shortly after receiving the case Monday, the jury asked if they could have a transcript of Yanez’s interview with Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators. It was denied, leaving them with neither a recorded nor written account of an interview that featured prominently in the prosecution’s assertion that Yanez never saw a gun when he fired seven times at Castile; five rounds struck him.

The prosecution never entered the interview into evidence when presenting their case, but made a late attempt to do so after the defense testimony was underway. The move backfired Friday when Leary criticized the prosecution’s timing and refused to allow the video. Defense attorney Thomas Kelly objected to the prosecution’s effort, calling it an “improper impeachment” of Yanez and asserting that the state allegedly withheld the video in order to compel Yanez’s testimony.

Prosecution got greedy and tried to play some games and messed up.
 
With social media, a community at large feels this type of injustice even more acutely than before. And the cumulative effect of these verdicts will be radicalisation. Period.
 
What was the defense's argument for why Yanez feared for his life? Just because Castile said he had a gun?

Its bolded in the OP...

"The defense, on the other hand, maintained that Yanez acted in self-defense and argued that the shooting wouldn’t have happened if Castile wasn’t high on marijuana."

He had THC in his system so he was obviously a violent raging lunatic.
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
What was the defense's argument for why Yanez feared for his life? Just because Castile said he had a gun?

THC will impair your ability to comply with demands. He had a gun, and he wasn't complying fast enough. He moved his hands towards his waist, and since folks high on marijuana can be twitchy and aggressively unpredictable, the cop feared for his life.

It was a good, clean shot. Didn't even hit the passenger. That's true marksmanship.
 
What was the defense's argument for why Yanez feared for his life? Just because Castile said he had a gun?

Marijuana.

Black dude with a gun (which he could have) and drugs. He was fucked from the started, of course the officer got away with it. Nobody really gives a fuck because it doesn't affect them. They are all to content living their own lives.

"Oh, he shouldn't have been doing drugs, he was no angel! So he had it coming."
 

Omadahl

Banned
In the words of Run the Jewels, "When you niggas gon' unite and kill the police, motherfuckas?"

I know the song is about venting frustration at the futility of it all but damn. If people are taking shots at politicians, are we that far from more attacks on police? I remember thinking the Rodney King riots were going to bring about serious country-wide civil unrest. I wouldn't condone attacks but I sure as hell would understand.
 

Dude Abides

Banned
Its bolded in the OP...

"The defense, on the other hand, maintained that Yanez acted in self-defense and argued that the shooting wouldn’t have happened if Castile wasn’t high on marijuana."

He had THC in his system so he was obviously a violent raging lunatic.

He was high and I was scared is not a defense.

THC will impair your ability to comply with demands. He had a gun, and he wasn't complying fast enough. He moved his hands towards his waist, and since folks high on marijuana can be twitchy and aggressively unpredictable, the cop feared for his life.

Thanks.
 

tbm24

Member
I followed this pretty closely when it first went down, when the fuck did marijuana come into the picture? Fuck this.
 

Royce McCutcheon

Junior Member
Juror 2: An older white female who manages a White Bear Lake gas station that has a contract with police. She said she had never heard of the Castile case. The judge denied an attempt by prosecutors to strike her after it was revealed that she had pro-police posts on her Facebook page. One of those posts was heavily critical of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling during national anthems last year to protest police shootings. She said she had forgotten about the posts.

This is A-OK
 
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