Philando Castile FULL Press Conference 7/7/16
Channel: Khan Lo
Date: 2017-01-14

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, after the killing of a man in Baton Rouge during an attempted arrest, and 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, Lavish Reynolds, who states that Mr. Castile had done nothing wrong, and the fact that she streamed it live on Facebook. Ms. Reynolds gave her account of what had happened, stating again and again that Mr. Castile had just been 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.”

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, but late Thursday morning, the governor emerged to speak with protesters. 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.

    Protesters telling @GovMarkDayton to "Wake up" outside the governor's mansion #PhilandoCastile @StarTribune pic.twitter.com/ulFMBAWwc2
    — Leila Navidi (@LeilaNavidi) July 7, 2016 

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.
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The governor said, “I will do everything in my power to help protect the integrity of that investigation, to ensure a proper and just outcome for all involved.”

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.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Ms. Reynolds said that Mr. Castile, a cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school in St. Paul, had just come from having his hair done for his birthday when they were pulled over on Larpenteur Avenue, a major east-west street.