A man was fatally shot by police in Minnesota on Wednesday night while inside a auto with a woman and a child, an official said, adding that authorities are looking into reports that the aftermath of the incident was livestreamed on Facebook.
Advertisement
The girlfriend started the live-stream video with the man in the driver’s seat slumped next to her, his white T-shirt soaked with blood on the left side.
In the video, which was greeted with sickened disbelief all over the country on Wednesday night as news of the shooting spread, a woman who was with Castile at the time of the incident could be heard explaining that her boyfriend had been shot after informing the officer he was legally carrying a firearm. His girlfriend begins narrating what happened, saying, “They just killed my boyfriend”.
“He’s licensed to carry”, Diamond says in the video. She’s heard wailing and pleading with officers. The video and the profile of the woman who posted it, Lavish Reynolds, were unavailable for part of the night, and became viewable again some time after midnight.
“Oh my God, please don’t tell me he’s dead”.
Candles were placed at the site where Castile was shot.
St. Anthony Police Interim Police Chief Jon Mangseth said they are aware of the video but wouldn’t comment on specifics.
A vehicle at the scene of a shooting of a man involving a St. Anthony Park Police officer Wednesday in Falcon Heights, Minn.
Reynolds, who describes herself as Castile’s girlfriend, can be heard commenting throughout the almost 10-minute recording, which zooms in on at least one officer and the fatally wounded man, as well as the woman’s young daughter who was in the back seat. According to a livestream by the independent news website Unicorn Riot, dozens of protesters gathered on Summit Avenue at 2 a.m.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Assistance, a state-wide criminal investigative agency, was called and is investigating the incident, Mangseth said.
Philando’s mother had “broken down” over the death of her only son, the uncle told the Star Tribune. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I just wanted to know where my son was because I didn’t want my son to die alone”, she said.
A Minnesota police department says a man has died after an officer-involved shooting.
“I agree that is kind of behavior is unacceptable”, Dayton said, calling the shooting “a awful, terrible tragedy”. “As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times”. “Please don’t tell me my boyfriend just went like that”, she says, panning the camera slightly to her boyfriend.
He said his nephew was one more victim in a string of “young black men being murdered” by police.
With all of that, trying to do the right things and live accordingly, abide the law, he was killed by the law.
The people who are supposed to keep the community safe “end up being our executioners”, Clarence Castile said.
Mangseth told reporters that it’s the first officer-involved shooting in the area in more than 30 years. Castile, 32, was a kitchen supervisor for the St. Paul school district. “I told him to get his hands up”, the officer says in the graphic and expletive-laced video.
He is one of 123 black Americans shot and killed by police so far in 2016, according to the database.
“They won’t let us see him”, she said, sobbing.
“It’s shocking”, he said.
“Please don’t tell me this lord, please, Jesus don’t tell me that he’s gone”, Reynolds pleads with police in a hauntingly calm voice. “The police took an innocent man away from us”. “It’s okay, I’m right here with you”.
Advertisement
The protesters chanted, “No justice, no sleep”.
