The two officers were not right and resulted in the death of an innocent man.
Philando Castile: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Castile died shortly thereafter in a hospital. “This was a GOOD MAN,” a parent at the school where he worked wrote on Facebook.
Minnesota television station KARE11 has obtainedwhat may be police dispatch audio/scanner traffic of the initial stop and shooting aftermath. Castile’s girlfriend, Reynolds, has said they were stopped for a broken taillight they didn’t really have. The possible dispatch audio has a man purported to be the officer saying, “I’m going to stop a car. I’m going to check IDs. I have reason to pull it over.” Listen here.
“The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery,” the man adds. “The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just ‘cause of the wide set nose.” However, Castile had only a minor criminal history in Minnesota, almost entirely for traffic. Nothing in his record is even remotely as serious as armed robbery. The TV station said it obtained the audio from a viewer and hasn’t been able to verify it with police, although the license plate mentioned in it matches Castile’s; Heavy has also reached out to a police spokesperson for verification, as well as the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (which is investigating the shooting) and the officer’s lawyer. BCA’s spokeswoman, Jill Oliveira, said: “Regarding the audio you referenced… I don’t have information to provide to you about it. The BCA did not release it.” Asked for the dispatch audio, she said, “Data from an ongoing investigation does not become public under Minnesota law until the investigation concludes.”
KARE notes that, although it’s unclear which robbery the audio refers to, St. Anthony police had sent out photos of a July 2 gas station robbery in nearby Lauderdale through the Minnesota Crime Alert Network. It describes two men with dreadlocks robbing a gas station with handguns. See photos of the gas station armed robbery suspects here.
Castile’s uncle, Clarence, called the stop “racial profiling” in an interview with KARE 11 TV, saying: “I just thought it was kind of insane to pull somebody over saying they matched a robbery suspect by having flared nostrils. It is kind of hard to see flared nostrils from a car.” LillieNews.com, a local news site, published surveillance video photos of the gas station robbery suspects. The story says “two men” with dreadlocks had robbed the gas station with handguns