Last year, a motorist and legal gun owner named Philando Castile was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota. Now, according to reports, former officer Jeronimo Yanez said that the smell of pot from Castile's car made him fear for his life to the point that he opened fire on him in front of his child. Yanez told case investigators that he got "hit with an odor of burning marijuana" after pulling over Castile who had his girlfriend and four-year-old child in the car.
Yanez went on to say, "I thought, I was gonna die and I thought if he has the guts and 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." Yanez also made a claim that Philando Castile's "wide set nose" allegedly matched up with a description and photo of an armed robbery suspect. Yanez said "being that.. the inside of the vehicle smelled like marijuana I didn't know if he was keeping it on him for protection, for, from a, a drug dealer or anyting like that. Along with a transcript of Yanez's interview with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the full dashcam video of the incident was released. Castile's murder made national headlines because his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds streamed the shooting and the following events via Facebook Live.
Source: nydailynews.com
