A lawyer for the St. Anthony police officer who pulled over Philando Castile said he thought he looked like a suspect from a nearby armed robbery a few days before. But Castile’s family contends the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, did not follow the appropriate procedure for a felony traffic stop, if he believed Castile was a suspect in that case. “All he had to have was reasonable suspicion to pull him over,” Yanez’s attorney, Thomas Kelly, said of his client. Castile’s cousin said: “Even if they say he looked like someone in a robbery, it still doesn’t give him a right to kill someone.” Albert Goins, a lawyer for Castile’s family, said, “A felony stop does not usually involve officers walking up to your car and asking you to produce your driver’s license. A felony stop involves bringing the suspect out at gunpoint while officers are in a position of cover and having them lie on the ground until they can identify who that individual is.” He added, “Either [Castile] was a robbery suspect and [Yanez] didn’t follow the procedures for a felony stop, or [Castile] was not a robbery suspect and [Yanez] shot a man because he stood at his window getting his information,” Goins said.
