This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/philando-castile-minnesota-police-shooting.html

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Philando Castile’s Family Calls for Special Prosecutor in Minnesota Case Philando Castile’s Family Calls for Special Prosecutor in Minnesota Case
(about 2 hours later)
ST. PAUL — A lawyer for the family of Philando Castile, a black man fatally shot by a suburban police officer last week, called on Tuesday for a special prosecutor to take over the case and promised that a lawsuit would be filed against those responsible for his death. MINNEAPOLIS — Philando Castile had just finished getting his hair styled last Wednesday when he called his sister, Allysza, and offered to deliver dinner to the suburban house she shares with their mother.
The lawyer, Glenda Hatchett, also said she wanted “to make sure that the federal government is watching closely what has happened and what will happen.” Many, including Minnesota’s governor, have called for a separate investigation by the Justice Department, but so far federal officials have promised only to monitor the inquiry by the state authorities. Over a meal of Taco Bell takeout, the two siblings alternated between laughter and serious discussions, including about the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by the police in Louisiana.
The family also announced that Mr. Castile’s funeral would be held on Thursday in St. Paul. “We talked about all this stuff: ‘Did you see that video on Facebook of the man getting killed?’ ” Ms. Castile recalled in an interview Tuesday. “I said, ‘No, I didn’t watch it, bro. I refuse to watch another video.’ ”
Speaking on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol, Ms. Hatchett and Mr. Castile’s mother, Valerie, said the family was grieving and seeking answers for what happened last Wednesday along a busy stretch of road near the state fairgrounds in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb, when a traffic stop escalated into the fatal encounter. After a while, Mr. Castile left, and his sister fell asleep. Her brother had apparently gone back to his apartment in St. Paul to pick up his girlfriend, and then shopped at a grocery store. Before he made it home, two St. Anthony police officers saw him driving a wide-bodied Oldsmobile and pulled him over on Larpenteur Avenue near the state fairgrounds in the tiny, majority-white suburb of Falcon Heights.
“My son was a humanitarian; he was a pillar in his community,” said Ms. Castile, who noted that her son had worked for years as a lunchroom supervisor in St. Paul schools. “The children that he worked with loved him. He didn’t deserve to die like that.” “When I woke up from my nap,” Ms. Castile said through tears, “all hell had been broken out.”
A spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney, John J. Choi, whose office would normally handle the case when the investigation ends, did not immediately answer questions about whether Mr. Choi would heed the Castile family’s request and appoint a special prosecutor. In that time, Mr. Castile, a quiet man who loved driving old cars, who passed the hours playing video games and who found his vocation serving lunch to schoolchildren, had been fatally shot by one of those officers. His girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the passenger seat, streamed the gruesome aftermath live on Facebook, challenging the officer’s claim that Mr. Castile had disobeyed his instructions. Ms. Reynolds said Mr. Castile, who was 32 and African-American, was only reaching for his identification when he was killed.
Ms. Castile said she believed that race played a role in her son’s death, and called for a review of police training and state laws. Court records show that Mr. Castile was pulled over at least 52 times in Minnesota over a 14-year period, a fact that Ms. Castile said indicated he was often profiled. The video sparked almost immediate outrage and protests, raising questions about the role of race in the traffic stop and in the reaction by the officer, later identified as Jeronimo Yanez.
“You have people that drive and never get a ticket ever,” Ms. Castile said. “The numbers speak for themselves.” The official version of what happened remains largely opaque, with no radio traffic or dashboard camera footage released by the authorities, and only the vaguest outline of events provided by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the agency that is investigating. Thomas Kelly, the lawyer for Officer Yanez, has said that his client had more reason to pull him over than a problematic taillight mentioned by Ms. Reynolds in the Facebook video, and that it was the presence of a gun that prompted him to shoot.
Mr. Castile’s death prompted almost immediate outrage, with many finding out about the case through a live video that Mr. Castile’s girlfriend narrated and streamed on Facebook in the aftermath; she and her 4-year-old daughter were in the car at the time of the shooting. As demonstrators have marched in recent days, Ms. Castile and her mother, Valerie, have been left to plan a funeral, now set for Thursday, and plot the start of a course that they hope will lead to better police training, changes to state law and jail time for Officer Yanez. Valerie Castile said she believed her son had told Officer Yanez that he had a permit to carry a gun, and that he was armed, before the policeman saw his weapon and opened fire.
Most protests here have been peaceful, but 47 people were charged with rioting after a highway was blocked on Saturday night and the demonstration turned violent, with police officers injured by fireworks, rocks, bricks and glass bottles hurled at them. Ms. Castile has called for protests to remain peaceful. “All I can say is that I don’t know anywhere on this planet where if you tell the truth and are honest, you die,” said Valerie Castile, who said she believed her son had been racially profiled by the police in this region for years, amassing at least 52 traffic or parking cases recorded in a state court database. “If this is where humanity is headed to, we’re doomed.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the St. Paul police tried to clear the area outside the governor’s mansion where protesters had gathered since shortly after the shooting. After sunrise, some signs remained draped over the gate of the house and a small crowd of demonstrators were outside, though the tents and stacks of water bottles once there were gone. Valerie Castile and her lawyer, Glenda Hatchett, called on Tuesday for a special prosecutor to take over the case, asked the Justice Department to again consider starting its own investigation and fielded a phone call from Air Force One in which President Obama offered his condolences.
Ms. Castile, who described her son as a peaceful, kind man, said she hoped that his death would lead to deep conversations and meaningful changes to police procedures. Valerie Castile said she moved to Minnesota from the St. Louis area when her son was a toddler because this place seemed devoid of the blight and other problems that worried her in Missouri.
“He is the driving force in me to make sure this doesn’t happen to another mother,” Ms. Castile said. “It’s been going on too long. I used to look at TV and see other parents under these same circumstances and say, ‘Wow, I hope that would never happen to me.’ But it has.” And, in many ways, her son thrived here. As a teenager, she said, Mr. Castile took jobs fixing bikes and working at Blockbuster and Target stores. Not long after graduating from St. Paul public schools, he went to work for the school district in nutrition services, eventually earning a promotion to supervisor, the affection of the children and the name Mr. Phil from the students he served. “He loved his job,” Valerie Castile said. “He was an all-around good kid. He never got in trouble with me.”
But on the roadways, he found himself in trouble frequently. Of the 52 cases against him in the state’s court records system, all appeared traffic-related. Many were dismissed, some resulted in convictions, and none were for violations more serious than a misdemeanor.
Valerie Castile said she believed her son was targeted for the type of car he preferred — older ones that she said the police stereotyped as belonging to drug dealers — and the color of his skin.
“My position is that he shouldn’t have been stopped in the first place,” said Ms. Hatchett, the family lawyer, who said Tuesday that she would file a federal lawsuit against those responsible for Mr. Castile’s death.
Once he was pulled over last week, the family believes, the officer saw a gun, panicked and shot him unjustly. Minnesota law bars the authorities from confirming whether someone has a permit to carry a weapon, but Mr. Castile’s mother and sister both said he did.
Allysza Castile said that she and her brother had taken a class to become certified to carry a gun, but that she had cautioned him not to carry his weapon so frequently, for fear of the police overreacting.
“I used to tell him all the time that I do not carry my gun on me,” she said, “because they will shoot first and ask questions later.”