E-Paper
Girlfriend live-streams man’s dying moments
WASHINGTON: A video of the dying moments of a black man shot by Minnesota police after being pulled over while driving went viral Thursday, a day after a video emerged
WASHINGTON: A video of the dying moments of a black man shot by Minnesota police after being pulled over while driving went viral Thursday, a day after a video emerged of a similar incident in Louisiana.
“Oh my God, please don’t tell me he’s dead, please don’t tell me my boyfriend just went like that ... You shot four bullets into him, sir,” a woman, identified on her Facebook page as Lavish Reynolds, is heard saying in the video shot on her camera phone.
Police confirmed the shooting by an officer. Family and activists identified the victim as school cafeteria worker Philando Castile, 32.
Castile can be seen in the driver seat, large blood stains spreading through his white shirt. Reynolds sat next to him and her young daughter was also travelling in the car.
The shooting took place just one day after police in Louisiana shot dead a black father of five at point-blank range, in an incident being probed by federal investigators.
The shootings came on the eve of a closely watched trial in Baltimore on Thursday of an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a broken spine in the back of a police van.
In the video of the Minnesota killing, broadcast on Facebook Live and already viewed more than 1.7 mn times, Reynolds says the car was pulled over for a broken tail light. She later says there was also marijuana in the car.
Castile had a legal license to carry a firearm and was reaching for his license and vehicle registration when police shot him, she adds. Police said the incident was being investigated and a handgun was recovered at the scene.
