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Nas wrote: The Minnesota governor with some very strong words. I'm really shocked by his statement. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-falcon-heights-shooting.html?_r=0Philando Castile Shooting in Minnesota Leads Governor to Seek U.S. Investigation
Minnesota’s governor called on Thursday for a federal investigation into the shooting of a black man by a police officer during a traffic stop near St. Paul, after millions of people watched the bloody, dying man in a grisly video recorded by his girlfriend and streamed live moments after the shooting.
The deadly encounter Wednesday night in the city of Falcon Heights was at least the second shooting this week of a black man by police officers, and followed the killing of a man in Baton Rouge during an attempted arrest. Parts of both encounters were recorded on video.
The graphic video from Minnesota showed Philando Castile, 32, who had been shot several times, slumping against the woman who was recording the scene. As she did so, her 4-year-old daughter sat in the back seat and an officer stood just outside the driver’s side window, still aiming his gun at the mortally wounded man at point-blank range.
The video is all the more shocking for the calm, clear narration of the woman, Diamond Reynolds, who can be heard saying that Mr. Castile had done nothing wrong, and the fact that she streamed it live on Facebook. On the video, Ms. Reynolds gives her account of what happened, saying again and again that Mr. Castile was just reaching for his driver’s license and registration — as the officer had requested — when the officer opened fire.
“Please, officer, don’t tell me that you just did this to him,” she said. “You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.”
Ms. Reynolds’s daughter appears several times in the video. Near the end of the 10-minute clip, as the two are sitting in the back of a police car and Ms. Reynolds becomes increasingly distraught, the girl comforts her mother. “It’s O.K., Mommy,” she says. “It’s O.K. I’m right here with you.”
President Obama posted a message on Facebook on Thursday, saying that “all Americans should be deeply troubled” by the Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights shootings. “We’ve seen such tragedies far too many times, and our hearts go out to the families and communities who’ve suffered such a painful loss,” he said.
“What’s clear is that these fatal shootings are not isolated incidents,” Mr. Obama said. “They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve.”
Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter: “America woke up to yet another tragedy of a life cut down too soon. Black Lives Matter.”
As the video circulated widely on social media, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul during the night and Thursday morning, demanding accountability for the officers involved. Some voiced anger that Gov. Mark Dayton did not respond faster; rumors circulated on social media that he had been evacuated from the mansion during the night, but the governor’s office said that was not the case.
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Thirteen hours after the shooting, Mr. Dayton, a Democrat, released his first statement on the incident, saying that he had spoken with a White House official to request a Justice Department investigation. Representative Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, had called for the Justice Department to investigate earlier Thursday. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is already investigating.
After releasing his statement, Mr. Dayton emerged from the mansion and talked with protesters. “We’re shocked and horrified by what occurred last night,” he said. “A horrible, horrible tragedy, a senseless tragedy.”
The Justice Department released an ambiguous response to the governor’s call for a federal investigation, saying that it “will continue to monitor the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation into the death of Philando Castile, and will independently assess what further action may be warranted.”
The video of the shooting, which occurred around 9 p.m., passed rapidly among Twitter, Facebook and YouTube users, becoming significant news online before traditional outlets — even those in the Minneapolis area — caught up. The terms #FalconHeightsShooting and #PhilandoCastile were trending on Twitter as news of the encounter spread.
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Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Ms. Reynolds said that Mr. Castile, a cafeteria supervisor for the St. Paul Public Schools, had just come from having his hair done for his birthday when they were pulled over on Larpenteur Avenue, a major east-west street.
Falcon Heights is a small, predominantly white and middle-class city of about 5,500 residents, bordering St. Paul on the northwest. The two officers who stopped them were from the nearby city of St. Anthony, which provides police services under contract to Falcon Heights, and one officer approached Mr. Castile, who was driving, and said he had a broken taillight, Ms. Reynolds, who is also black, said.
“He tells us to put our hands in the air, we have our hands in the air,” she said. “At the time as our hands is in the air, he asked for license and registration.
“My boyfriend carries all his information in a thick wallet in his right side back pocket. As he’s reaching for his back pocket wallet, he lets the officer know, ‘Officer, I have a firearm on me.’ I began to yell, ‘But he’s licensed to carry.’ After that, he began to take off shots – bah, bah, bah, bah, ‘Don’t move! Don’t move!’ But how can you not move when you’re asking for license and registration? It’s either you want my hands in the air or you want my identification.”
In the video, she says repeatedly that her boyfriend was shot several times while reaching for his license, and that he had told officers before the shooting that he had a gun in the car.
In the background, one of the officers can be heard shouting: “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hands up.”
The video begins with images of Mr. Castile, who appears to be moaning and moving slightly, his left arm and left side bloody. Ms. Reynolds then pans the camera to her face and says matter-of-factly, “They killed my boyfriend.” Looking into the camera, she says that Mr. Castile had told officers that he was carrying a weapon — she says he was licensed to do so — and that he was following instructions to produce his license and registration when he was shot.
Jon Mangseth, interim police chief of St. Anthony, said he could not provide any details about the shooting, but said the officer had been put on administrative leave. He declined to identify the officers involved, but said that the one who fired — whom Ms. Reynolds described as Asian-American — had been with the department for more than five years.
“We haven’t had an officer-involved shooting in 30 years or more,” he told reporters at the shooting scene early Thursday. “It’s shocking. It’s not something that occurs in this area often.”
Family members demanded justice for Mr. Castile during an interview on CNN early Thursday. Mr. Castile’s uncle, Clarence Castile, said police officers who were meant to protect Americans had instead become “our executioners and judges and murderers.”
When he watched the video, he said, “I saw a young man, shot, helpless — shot for no apparent reason. I saw my nephew shot by a man, clinging to his life with no help. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life.”
Mr. Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, said she had taught her son to be extremely cautious when encountering members of law enforcement. “If you get stopped by the police, comply,” Ms. Castile said. “Comply, comply, comply.”
“My son was a law-abiding citizen and he did nothing wrong,” she said. “He’s no thug.”
She added, “I think he was just black in the wrong place.”
Mr. Castile had worked in the Nutrition Services Department of the St. Paul Public Schools since 2002, and became a supervisor two years ago, the district said in a statement. In recent years, he worked at J. J. Hill Montessori Magnet School, which is part of the district.
“Colleagues describe him as a team player who maintained great relationships with staff and students alike,” the district’s statement said. “He had a cheerful disposition and his colleagues enjoyed working with him. He was quick to greet former co-workers with a smile and hug.”
In the Facebook video shot by Ms. Reynolds — who uses the name Lavish Reynolds online — an officer can be heard telling her to keep her hands on the wheel, and she replies: “I will, sir. No worries. I will.”
Moments later, her voice shaking, she says: “Oh, my God, please don’t tell me he’s gone. Please don’t tell me my boyfriend just went like that.”
Then: “Please, Jesus, don’t tell me that he’s gone. Please, Officer, don’t tell me that you just did this to him.” Ms. Reynolds was interviewed by the police and then released.
Mr. Castile was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he died Wednesday night, Chief Mangseth said. No officers were injured, he said.
The Falcon Heights shooting occurred the same day that the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting by the Baton Rouge police. As in the Minnesota case, the encounter was captured in a searing video that was aired repeatedly on television and social media and reignited contentious issues surrounding police killings of African-Americans.
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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George
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