UPDATED: Friday, July 8, 2:30 PM EST
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner confirmed Friday that Philando Castile died of multiple gun shot wounds and ruled his death a homicide, reports Reuters and CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Scuitto.
Castile was shot in front of his girlfriend, who broadcast his death to the world by live streaming the aftermath during a traffic stop on Wednesday evening on a roadside outside of St. Paul, Minnesota.
SOURCES: The Raw Story | PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter
On Thursday, national media covered another fatal shooting of a Black man named Philando Castile. The St. Paul, Minnesota, native was shot in the driver’s seat of his car during a traffic stop while his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter looked on. Reynolds live streamed the aftermath of Castile’s shooting on Facebook.
According to Reynolds in her live stream post, Castile told the officer he had a concealed weapon. When the officer demanded identification and Castile reached to provide it, the responding officer fired off four shots into his body. He died later at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Philando’s mother, Valerie Castile, says she taught him to be a respectful, and instilled in him the wisdom to comply with the police. In an interview with CNN, she said:
“That was something we always discussed: comply. That’s the key thing — the key thing in order to try to survive being stopped by the police, is to comply. Whatever they ask you to do, do it. Don’t say nothing. Just do whatever they want you to do. So what’s the difference in complying, and you get killed anyway?”
Castile was a nutrition services assistant at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School from November 2002 until August 11, 2004, when he was promoted to nutrition services supervisor. Valerie Castile said in an interview with CNN that he has been working since he was 15, and was a tax-paying citizen since the age of 18.
A statement from Saint Paul Public Schools described him as a “team player who maintained great relationships with staff and students alike,” and he often “greeted his coworkers with a smile and a hug.” It goes on to say that he was “quiet, respectful and kind.”
According to Castile’s Facebook, he graduated from Central Senior High School in 2001, then studied at the University of Minnesota. The New York Daily News reports he would have turned 33 on July 16.
His mother told CNN she has yet to ID her son’s body. The last time she saw her son was about 2 p.m. on Wednesday, she says in the interview.
SOURCE: Minneapolis Star Tribune, CNN, New York Daily News, Facebook, Instagram | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter
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