US cop guns down black man in Minnesota; sparks outrage

Also Read| US: Black man shot and killed by police; Justice Department announces probe

She said Castile, 32, was shot in front of her and her 4-year-old daughter after police pulled their car over, citing a broken tail light. “Nothing within his body language said ‘Kill me, I want to be dead,’” she said.

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO: Falcon Heights Minnesota police shooting

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said a state investigation was under way and that he had asked the US Justice Department to begin an immediate, independent probe. “This kind of behaviour is unacceptable,” Dayton said. Dozens of protesters gathered at the governor’s mansion in St Paul, about 15 km southeast of the scene of the incident, where Dayton spoke at a news conference with Reynolds and civil rights activists.

As Reynolds spoke, people shouted “murder,” and called for the arrest of the officer involved.

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The use of force by police against African-Americans in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and New York has sparked periodic and sometimes violent protests, as well as spawning a movement called Black Lives Matter. Anger has intensified when the officers involved in such incidents are acquitted or not charged at all.

The latest shooting was especially chilling because Reynolds streamed a 10-minute video on Facebook moments afterward.

“Many of us watched the video, and we are shaken to capacity at the thought of this,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of rights group NAACP’s Minneapolis chapter.

Reynolds and her daughter were treated like criminals after the incident, Levy-Pounds said. “What this signifies is that black lives don’t really matter in the state of Minnesota.”

So far, the St Anthony Police Department said only that an unidentified black man was wounded during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, at 9 pm Wednesday. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. The officer’s ethnicity was not clear.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it was prepared to investigate the shooting death of a black man by a police officer in Minnesota.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has called on the Justice Department to begin an investigation into the death of Philando Castile after a traffic stop on Wednesday.

“The Department is prepared, as necessary, to conduct further investigation and consider this matter under applicable federal law,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

Castile was killed hours after the department said it had opened an investigation into Tuesday’s fatal shooting of another black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by two police officers.

President Barack Obama is “deeply disturbed” by the latest shootings by police, the White House said, adding that the incidents do not need to drive a wedge between people and law enforcement.