Nearly 24 hours after cops shot and killed a 37-year-old man named Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge on Tuesday (July 5) outside a convenience store, a Minnesota police officer fatally shot Philando Castile, 32, at a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota on Wednesday night (July 6).
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The Justice Department said it was aware of the incident and was assessing the situation.
Castile’s mother expressed shock.
Speaking to U.S. new channel CNN early on Thursday, Mr Castile’s mother said she suspected she would never learn the whole truth about her son’s death.
The use of force by police against blacks in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and NY has come under heavy scrutiny.
St. Anthony Sgt. Jon Mangseth issued a brief statement saying Reynolds and her daughter were not injured.
Crowds continued to gather the scene, at the governor’s mansion in nearby St. Paul and at the hospital where Castile was pronounced dead. “They didn’t let me see my son’s body at all”, she said early Thursday.
Clarence Castile, the victim’s uncle, said on CNN that the shooting is another indication of police not serving and protecting the public as they are trained to do. The officer’s ethnicity was not clear.
Authorities say Philando Castile, 32, was shot by St. Anthony officers who were patrolling in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights.
Castile’s girlfriend began streaming the aftermath of the incident live on Facebook, at first calmly explaining what had just happened then begging police to tell her they did not just shoot and kill her boyfriend. Protests drawing about 200 people began at the shooting site as the video began to spread online.
Police officers in Falcoln Heights, Minnesota-a small town of little more than 5,000 people outside of St. Paul-shot and killed an African-American man Wednesday night as he was attempting to comply with orders during a routine traffic stop. The woman describes being pulled over for a “busted tail light” and her boyfriend being shot as he told the officer that he was carrying a pistol and was licensed.
Sgt. Jon Mangseth, interim chief of the St. Anthony Police Department, confirmed at least one St. Anthony police officer shot a man inside his vehicle during a traffic stop at Larpenteur Avenue and Fry Street.
“He doesn’t deserve this”, the woman was heard saying as she cried in the video.
“Fuck! I told him not to reach for it!”
“Oh my God, please don’t tell me he’s dead”, Reynolds pleads.
For much of the almost 10-minute video, Reynolds can be heard wailing, off and on camera, as police apparently cast her phone to the side at one point and later handcuffed her, so she could not hold the phone up. “He’s a good man”.
The woman said later in the video that she didn’t know her boyfriend’s condition and that her 4-year-old daughter had witnessed the shooting. The child said: “It’s OK, Mommy”.
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The St. Anthony polce officer can be heard shouting as Reynolds documented the altercation.
