In the nine-minute video she posted to her Facebook page, Reynolds said police pulled over Castile for a broken tail light (which wasn’t broken) and that her boyfriend told the officer he was carrying a licensed gun.
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Thousands of people took to the streets in USA cities on Friday to denounce the fatal police shootings of the two black men, marching the day after a gunman killed five police officers watching over a similar demonstration in Dallas.
Hundreds of demonstrators braved rain showers and gathered outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul. Those officers are now on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation into Philando Castile’s death.
State investigators identified the officer who shot him as Jeronimo Yanez, a four-year veteran of the St Anthony Police Department.
Philando Castile’s prior traffic stops dated to 2002, resulting in 86 violations that led to $6,588 in fines. Reynolds described the officer who shot Castile as Asian.
Yanez’s attorney said on Saturday that the officer was reacting to Castile’s gun, not because he was African-American. “This had nothing to do with race”.
“This has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the presence of a gun”, Kelly added.
Yanez, who is Latino, is distraught and saddened over the shooting in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights, Kelly said. The officer is now not living at his home in Vandals Heights, Minn., north of St. Paul, Kelly says, because of the attention he’s received since the shooting. Castile was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop on Wednesday. She said that Yanez shot Castile after he reached for his identification.
Although Yanez’s face couldn’t be seen on the video, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) released his and Kauser’s name to the public Friday, according to The Daily Mail.
Court records show it was at least the 32nd time Castile had been pulled over in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area since 2002.
Less than half were ever prosecuted, as Castile pleaded guilty to charges that included driving with a revoked license and driving without proof of insurance. And I commend all of the thousands of people who have channeled their emotions into peaceful protests by coming together across this country to demand change. Two people were arrested for blocking traffic on Michigan Avenue.
State officials said they were barred by law from saying whether Castile had a concealed-carry permit.
Reynolds says that she believes that the shooting “was not because of something that transpired in Minnesota”, and Castile’s mother Valerie said she’s been too preoccupied dealing with her son’s death to follow the news.
Sterling’s and Castile’s families have denounced the Dallas officers’ killings.
They should have been following protocols to take cover and order the driver and passengers out of the vehicle by gunpoint, he said.
The governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton has said what a lot of other people are thinking – Philando Castile was a victim of racial profiling.
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On Friday, Dayton said he stood by his statements but that he had no new information about the case.
