Half of arrestees where Castile died are black

St. Anthony is a suburb north of St. Paul.

Hatchett noted how proud she was to represent Philando Castile’s mother, and spoke of Valerie Castile’s unbelievable strength before introducing her. Castile talked about how her son would have turned 33 years-old this Saturday, and how much he meant to his family and the greater community.

The family of Philando Castile, the Minnesota man whose fatal shooting last week by police helped spark protests nationwide, is planning a lawsuit, although their lawyer wouldn’t say Tuesday who would be sued.

The St. Anthony police data shows that while just 7 percent of residents in St. Anthony and the neighboring towns of Lauderdale and Falcon Heights that the department also serves are black, almost half of all arrests performed by St. Anthony officers were of African-Americans in 2016.

Castile, 32, was riding in the vehicle’s front passenger seat and his girlfriend was driving when the officer made the traffic stop – supposedly for a broken tail light. On the tape, the officer says into his police radio that the occupants of Castile’s vehicle resemble robbery suspects authorities had been looking for.

“The children he worked with loved him”, Castile said.

The audio recording, which was given by a viewer to Minneapolis’ KARE-TV Tuesday, is purportedly police radio traffic from the time Castile’s vehicle was pulled over Thursday.

Hatchett was a corporate attorney for Delta Air Lines for almost a decade before she was appointed chief judge of the Fulton County Juvenile Court in Atlanta and later gained fame for her show, which ran for eight seasons. She started her own law firm in 2014, and vowed Tuesday that she’d take legal action on behalf of Castile’s family.

Based on what she knows about the shooting so far, “this never should have happened”, she said, adding: “This time must be the last time”.