"I have not identified my son's body because they didn't let me" --#PhilandoCastile's mother https://t.co/gZQN7xKRRx https://t.co/2T7LH4Cjjv
— CNN (@CNN) July 7, 2016
Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man from Minnesota was shot four times and killed by police during a routine traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb on Wednesday night. Police confirmed the news and footage of the shooting's aftermath was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile's girlfriend Lavish Reynolds. In the livestream, Reynolds explains that Castile was reaching for his license when he was shot and had also told the officers that he had a gun in the car, in compliance with the rules of his open carry permit.
Castile was reportedly a cafeteria worker at an elementary school in St. Paul. Speaking to a CNN affiliate on Thursday morning, Castile's mother Valerie said that she "wondered whether he was simply 'black in the wrong place.'"
After Reynolds's video went viral on early Thursday morning, a crowd gathered outside the Governor mansion, chanting for him to wake up. Governor Mark Dayton did not make an appearance last night and has yet to give a statement as of Thursday morning. (The police also did not release the names of the officers involved.)
This is the second fatal shooting of a black man by police this week. Alton Sterling's death is now being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department. According to Campaign Zero, they are the 184th and 185th black people killed by police this year.