He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
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The shooting in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb, comes one day after the fatal officer-involved shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, LA, which was captured on video.
Authorities say the girlfriend and her child were in the vehicle at the time of the shooting.
The aftermath of the shooting was broadcast on Facebook by a woman identifying herself as the victim’s girlfriend.
Per Reynolds, they were pulled over for a “busted tail light”.
“The police just shot him for no apparent reason, no reason at all”, Reynolds says as she continues filming. “You shot four bullets into him, sir”, Reynolds is heard saying in the painful video.
On Thursday, a distraught Reynolds told reporters that the officer “killed him in front of us for no reason”.
Valerie Castile said she believes her son told the police officer he was licensed to carry a gun.
The video looks up to the sky while she’s detained but she can be heard screaming, “Please don’t tell me my boyfriend is gone. Please don’t tell me my boyfriend went like that”.
Toward the end of the video, before being taken into custody, Reynolds pleads for help from Facebook viewers, prompting her daughter to say, “It’s OK, mama”.
The video goes on to show the woman exiting the vehicle and being handcuffed.
One officer has been placed on standard paid administrative leave, Mangseth said at a short news conference early Thursday morning.
“As this unfolds we will release the information as we learn it, and we will address concerns as we are made aware of them”, he said, adding he had yet to see the Facebook video, which he had only learned about from members of the media.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Assistance, a state-wide criminal investigative agency, was called and is investigating the incident, Mangseth said.
Reynolds said the car’s taillight wasn’t even broken, which was the excuse for the stop in the first place.
A statement from the St. Anthony Police Department said an unidentified black man was wounded during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, at 9 p.m. local time.
Protests began nearly immediately after news first broke of the shooting, with a crowd gathered at the scene chanting, “we will not move”. He said there were two officers present during the shooting, including a primary officer with more than five years of experience, and a backup officer.
“I’m exhausted of the laws and policies on the books being used to justify murder”, Levy-Pounds, a civil rights attorney, said as rain began to fall.
He was employed as a nutrition services assistant from November 2002 until being promoted to a nutrition services supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School Aug. 11, 2014, according to The Saint Paul Public School System.
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Philando grew up knowing he should always comply with the police, Valerie says.
