Star Tribune
State Appeals Court upholds denial of teaching license for ex-officer who killed Philando Castile
The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the state’s teacher licensing board to deny ex-officer Jeronimo Yanez’s application to become a substitute teacher.
In November 2022, the appellate court found that the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board inappropriately denied a teaching license to Yanez, a former St. Anthony police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a 2016 traffic stop that ignited dayslong protests and a high-profile manslaughter trial. Yanez was acquitted in the killing Castile, a cafeteria supervisor in St. Paul Public School District.
The board was ordered to reconsidered Yanez’s application, but members reached the same conclusion: Yanez is unfit to teach in Minnesota public schools. Appellate judges in a unanimous decision issued Monday said it discerns no basis “for disturbing the board’s determination.”
Yanez’s attorney, Robert Fowler, said in a statement to the Star Tribune that the board’s original decision “was completely biased and political.”
“[T]he teaching licensing board simply has no expertise on police issues to draw any conclusions as to why my client couldn’t teach, especially since he’s actually been a good teacher for years now…” Fowler said. “Unfortunately, the court was not willing to take up these difficult political issues and instead just rubber stamped the agency’s decision.”
Fowler said this case “is further proof that issues surrounding police are not able to be decided in a fair and unbiased manner in Minnesota.”
As directed by the court, the board received extensive evidence and testimony from experts in the fields of education and policing to weigh under eight factors.
“…Three factors significantly support denying Yanez’s application: the likelihood that Yanez’s conduct may adversely affect students or fellow teachers given the deep impact of Castile’s death; the degree of anticipated adversity and resulting threats to the emotional and social wellbeing of the students with Yanez present in the classroom; and the extenuating or aggravating circumstances surrounding the conduct, which resulted in world-wide notoriety of the killing and demonstration of ‘extremely poor judgement’ by Yanez,” the ruling stated.
Yanez argued on appeal that the board should not consider whether his conduct as a police officer violated moral standards required of teaching. He said the board should look at his positive performance review earned while teaching at a private Catholic school in St. Paul, where the principal supported Yanez’s substitute teaching application despite awareness of the fatal shooting.
However, the appellate court said such limiting parameters to not consider all previous employment experience would depart from customary hiring practices.
Joseph Gothard, superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, whom Yanez argued was biased against him, opined that Yanez prejudged Castile and took his life in a manner that endangered others.
Castile’s girlfriend was in the passenger seat, livestreaming the aftermath on Facebook, and her then-4-year-old daughter sat in the backseat. Yanez faced additional charges for endangering them when he fired his service weapon seven times into the vehicle.
Gothard said the prejudgments of Yanez, who is Latino, of Castile, who is Black, indicated “racial bias, microaggressions, and negativity bias that are detrimental to students, especially students of color,” the court stated.
It concluded that the superintendent “questioned Yanez’s ability to meet the ethical demands for a diverse student population and opined that Yanez’s presence as a teacher in Minnesota classrooms poses a risk of retraumatizing students, staff and families.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
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