INDIANAPOLIS – A woman who had lived in Indianapolis streamed what happened in the minutes after her boyfriend was fatally shot by police near Minneapolis live on Facebook.
Diamond Reynolds, 26, and Philandro Castile, 32, of St. Paul, Minn., were pulled over for a traffic stop Wednesday night.
In the video, Reynolds described being pulled over for a “busted tail light” and said Castile told the officer he was carrying a gun for which he was licensed.
The officer told her to keep her hands up and said: "I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand out."
"You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir," Reynolds responded.
The video goes on to show Reynolds getting out of the car and being handcuffed. A young girl can be seen and is heard saying at one point, "I'm scared, Mommy."
Reynolds described being put in the back seat of the police car and said, "The police just shot my boyfriend for no apparent reason."
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Reynolds recently lived in Indianapolis.
Her mother was at work Wednesday night and was watching her daughter's Facebook Live feed.
“Just what if when that police shot him, a bullet went through that seat? My granddaughter could be dead too. What if Diamond had sneezed or fumbled with her phone because she was going live? He would have shot her,” said Doty.
Doty said she told her daughter to stop posting so much to Facebook, but she’s glad in this case that she did.
She said Castile was a great guy and didn’t deserve to die the way he did.
“Philandro was a phenomenal young man. He had been with my daughter on and off for 10 years. He was a staple in my family… and now he’s gone. It’s surreal,” said Doty. “He’s not my child but I loved him as if he were.”
Doty says she wonders what their families will do now and how to stop the senseless violence.
“We raise our kids to believe that the police are here to protect us, but I have a 4-year-old granddaughter that will beg to differ. What do I teach her? How do I teach her to move on? How do I teach her to forgive?
Police use of force, particularly against minorities, has returned to the national spotlight since the video-recorded fatal shooting earlier this week of 37-year-old Alton Sterling by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting, which took place after Sterling, who was black, scuffled with two white police officers outside a convenience store.
