“This was a clear-cut case of unnecessary, fatal police violence”

NEW YORK – Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, issued the following statement in response to the not guilty verdict for St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot and killed Black man Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, MN last July.

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of Color Of Change:

“Driving while Black is a crime punishable by death in America. That’s exactly what the jurors in the trial of Officer Jeronimo Yanez have decided today by issuing their not guilty verdict.

“There is little ambiguity about the circumstances of Philando Castile’s death. Video from both Officer Yanez’s dashcam and Castile’s girlfriend phone show Castile complying with Officer Yanez’s requests—but that did not stop him from being shot multiple times and left to bleed out in front of his girlfriend and daughter. This was a clear cut case of unnecessary, fatal police violence, and it is an outrage that Ramsey Attorney John J. Choi could not obtain a conviction the officer.

“District Attorneys around the country, from Tulsa to Cleveland to now St. Paul, must be held accountable for their failures to secure justice for victims of police violence. In doing so they not only fail the integrity of our legal system—they fail to value Black lives.”