NPR
Philando Castile, 32, was shot Wednesday night by a police officer in suburban St. Paul, Minn., in the second fatal encounter between police and an African-American man to gain national attention this week.
Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, began streaming video live on Facebook immediately after the officer fired. In the stream she said Castile was stopped for a broken taillight, had notified the officer that he was licensed to carry a handgun and was reaching for his wallet at the officer's request when he was shot.
The graphic video, which shows Castile suffering from a wound to his chest area, his shirt bloodied as he slumps in the car, has sparked outrage and protests in Falcon Heights, Minn., not far from where Castile worked as a cafeteria supervisor at the J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in the St. Paul Public School District. The school district said Thursday that its staff is grieving his "tragic death." President Obama, without commenting on the particulars of the case, said that such incidents are "symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system."
"Stay with me," Reynolds says at the start of the video, as her boyfriend clutches his side.
"He's licensed to carry. He was trying to get out his ID and his wallet out his pocket. And he let the officer know that he was — he had a firearm, and he was reaching for his wallet. And the officer just shot him in his arm."
Reynolds is then interrupted by the shouts of a police officer who tells her to keep her hands where he can see them. As he speaks, he's pointing the gun inside the car.
"
I told him not to reach for it!" the officer yells, as he seems to take deep breaths. "I told him to get his hands up."
"You told him to get his ID, sir — his driver's license," a remarkably composed Reynolds answers.
She then looks at her boyfriend and says, "Oh, my God, please don't tell me he's dead.
Please don't tell me my boyfriend just went like that."
"Please don't tell me this, Lord, please, Jesus, don't tell me that he's gone," Reynolds says. She later adds, "Please, Officer, don't tell me that you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir."
More than a minute into the video, other police officers order Reynolds out of the car. She complies — asking about her daughter as she does so (the video shows that the girl is being held in the arms of an officer).
A police officer then orders Reynolds to get on her knees, where we hear the sound of handcuffs being placed on her. Her phone is tossed onto the ground, but continues to record. The recording then captures the sound of an officer — seemingly the one who shot Castile — periodically yelling an obscenity.
Reynolds' phone is then returned to her as she sits in the back seat of the police car with her daughter. Toward the end of the video, Reynolds becomes more emotional, screaming, "I can't believe they did this."
As Reynolds cries, her daughter tells her, "It's OK, Mommy. It's OK, I'm right here with you."
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| Philando Castile, right. (Courtesy of Allysza Castile) |
- Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton called for a federal investigation into the shooting saying that he believes race was a factor in the 32-year-old's death. “Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver and the passengers, were white?” the Democrat said. “I don’t think it would have. … I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront that this kind of racism exists.” (Wesley Lowery, Lindsey Bever and Michael E. Miller)
-- Castile’s mother noted that her son was killed just days before his birthday. Known as Phil, he graduated from St. Paul’s Central High School before going to work for the St. Paul public school system’s nutrition services division in 2002. “Two years ago, he earned a promotion to a supervisory position at a new school: J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School, where he managed the cafeteria. ‘He loved kids, even though he didn’t have any of his own,’ his mother said, noting that her son always helped out the children in need in the lunch line. ‘He’d give them an extra scoop of this and an extra scoop of that.’ Teachers and parents at J.J. Hill said they adored Castile, a warm and gentle presence who knew the names of each of the school’s more than 400 students.” (T. Rees Shapiro, Emma Brown and William Wan)
