Minnesota police officer charged with manslaughter in death of Philando Castile

Prosecutors in Minnesota said Wednesday that they had charged the police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, with second-degree manslaughter for the shooting.

The shooting’s aftermath was broadcast on Facebook Live by Diamond Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend, footage that quickly spread across social media and cable news.

John Choi, the Ramsey County attorney, said at a news conference in St. Paul, on Wednesday morning that Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who shot Castile, would also be charged with endangering the lives of Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter, who was also in the car.

Yanez and his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, were both put on leave from the St. Anthony Police Department after the shooting.

Castile’s death outside St. Paul, was one of several high-profile police shootings that drew intense scrutiny this year. The well-liked cafeteria manager at a local school was killed during what became a bloody three-day span in July that saw a series of deadly shootings by and of police officers.

A day before Castile was shot, an officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fatally shot Alton Sterling. The two shootings set off a series of protests nationwide, and at one protest in Dallas a day later, a lone gunman killed five police officers in an act of apparent retaliation, followed by another ambush that killed three officers in Baton Rouge later that month.

For Reynolds, the time since Castile’s death in July has been difficult. At the time, she was deemed a hero for calmly recording the incident and traveled to New York to appear on “Good Morning America.” But the months since have seen crisis after crisis in her life.