A police officer who shot dead a black man strapped in the driver’s seat of a car in Minnesota last year walked free last week, after a jury held him not guilty. The victim’s girlfriend, who was sitting in the passenger seat, had streamed the incident live immediately after the shots were fired and Philando Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria worker, slumped. “I wasn’t reaching,” were his last words, about the gun that he legally carried. A four-year-old girl watched it all from the back seat and one bullet landed inches away from her. Officer Jeronimo Yanez, 28 then, told the jury that he feared for his life. “I was scared to death. I thought I was going to die. My family’s faces popped up in my mind...,” he told the jury.

The police have released new videos of the incident after the verdict. Mr. Yanez stopped the car under the pretext of a traffic check, suspecting the victim to be a robber. The officer stood at the driver’s window and demanded to see the licence and insurance papers. Castile handed the insurance paper and told the officer as he reached for the licence: “Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.”

“Don’t reach for it then,” said the officer. “I’m, I, I was reaching for…” said Castile. “Don’t pull it out,” shouted the officer. “I’m not pulling it out..” replied Castile. “He’s not,” Diamond Reynolds, his girlfriend interjected. “Don’t pull it out,” shouted the officer, as he pulled out his gun and began firing into the car, hitting Castile five times. In the Facebook video, the officer is heard telling. “I told him not to reach for it...” “You told him to get his ID, sir — his licence,” Ms. Reynolds replied.

In cases involving police shootings, the jury is required to address only a narrow question — did the officer fear for his life at that exact moment that he fired? Police officers are rarely charged, and convictions are rarer. Last year, 963 people were shot dead by the police in America, while in the first six months of this year, 492 people have been shot dead. In extraordinary cases — for instance when an unarmed person is shot in the back and cameras capture it — it leads to outrage that barely lasts. The government has no data on police shootings, but Washington Post keeps count through a special project. “One in four people killed this year was mentally ill. Black males... [who] account for nearly a quarter of the deaths... are only 6% of the nation’s population,” the Post said in half-yearly findings.

Castile complied with everything that he was told and he was polite to the officer, but his life was taken. Policing experts have since commented that good policing tactics would have involved Mr. Yanez standing behind the driver’s view while interviewing him. And if he feared for his life, the orders should not have been what not to do, but what to do. In this case, “freeze” the situation, by ordering the suspect to put his hands on the steering wheel or to raise them.

Sagging gun sales

A police officer approaches a suspect with the assumption that he is armed and the thought that he could end up dead unless he shoots first. Debates on policing in America take a pro-cop versus anti-cop tone, and rarely connect it to the easy and widespread availability of guns in the country that spreads anxiety among law enforcers, who routinely panic and react as it happened in this case. President Donald Trump has declared himself as a gun-friendly President, but gun sales have slowed ever since he took office. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is trying to push up sagging sales numbers by encouraging women to buy guns as a statement of empowerment and is lobbying for further loosening of already lax gun regulations. And the President has declared his support for the NRA.

Varghese K. George works for The Hindu and is based in Washington.