In the aftermath of Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez being acquitted by a Minnesota jury for the shooting death of Philando Castile, social media lit up with condemnation. Given the evidence known to the public, the outrage is entirely justified.
On July 6, 2016, Castile was pulled over by Officer Yanez. After Castile provided the officer with his proof of insurance, he said: &#8220;Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me.&#8221; Castile had a CCW. Yanez then told Castile not to reach for his weapon, and as Castile instead reached for his ID, according to <a href="http://www.startribune.com/fifth-day-of-jury-deliberations-underway-in-yanez-trial/428862473/#1">reports</a>, Yanez shot him seven times.
As previously mentioned, with the understanding that there may be evidence of which the public is unaware, this was, as National Review&#8217;s David French <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448740/philando-castile-verdict-was-miscarriage-justice">noted</a>, a &#8220;miscarriage of justice.&#8221; Unfortunately, the social media backlash has revived the long-discredited narrative that Michael Brown was a victim in the vein of Philando Castile:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;We want justice for Philando Castile. And we didn&#8217;t forget about Mike Brown.&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash">#BlackLivesMatter</a>
&#8212; Women&#8217;s March CT (@womensmarchct) <a href="https://twitter.com/womensmarchct/status/876164954784763907">June 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Philando Castile, Jordan Edwards, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Sam DuBose, Tamir Rice&#8230; end white supremacy <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/justice4philando?src=hash">#justice4philando</a> <a href="https://t.co/OXzUssZSS0">pic.twitter.com/OXzUssZSS0</a>
&#8212; K.R. Pepper (@katt_pepper) <a href="https://twitter.com/katt_pepper/status/874629855878447105">June 13, 2017</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Officer cleared in death of Philando Castile. 
No one charged in Michael Brown&#8217;s death. 
No charges in Alton Sterling killing. 
Etc. <a href="https://t.co/2sPvweu9bw">pic.twitter.com/2sPvweu9bw</a>
&#8212; Jim Roberts (@nycjim) <a href="https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/875809387704705024">June 16, 2017</a>&#8203;</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Trayvon Martin. 
Kendrick Johnson. 
Michael Brown. 
Philando Castile. 
Senseless murders that have hurt my heart &amp; forever changed my views
&#8212; Goodtroubl3 (@iBiteiStrike) <a href="https://twitter.com/iBiteiStrike/status/876195482770472962">June 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
No.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/03/16/lesson-learned-from-the-shooting-of-michael-brown/?utm_term=.fa81b1f59578">Forensic evidence</a> and extensive witness cross-examination proved that Michael Brown was not the &#8220;gentle giant&#8221; the media made him out to be. He was not surrendering with his hands in the air. In fact, he <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14339/leftists-say-michael-brown-didnt-strong-arm-rob-frank-camp">robbed</a> a convenience store, assaulted an employee, and in his subsequent altercation with Officer Darren Wilson, he attempted to take the officer&#8217;s firearm.
Philando Castile is not Michael Brown, and drawing a line between them delegitimizes the outrage over the Yanez verdict.
Like equating the Brock Turner rape case with the Rolling Stone UVA rape hoax, connecting Philando Castile and Michael Brown is an egregious false equivalency that undermines real victims.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this situation is that many people who are making the connection between Castile and Brown are sincerely ignorant. They don&#8217;t know that Michael Brown of &#8220;hands up, don&#8217;t shoot&#8221; fame was not the victim many in the media claimed he was.
When dealing with and debating sensitive issues, it is incredibly important that we, as Americans, present the facts as they are, that we are accurate and above reproach, that we take the time to separate truth from fiction.
If we fail to do these things, we will also fail to see the real problems; if we fail see the real problems clearly because we are blinded by the dust we&#8217;ve kicked up, we cannot come to a solution; and if we cannot come to a solution, men like Philando Castile will have died in vain.

Drawing A False Equivalence Between Philando Castile And Michael Brown Undermines Real Justice

Michael Brown

Philando Castile

In July, Minnesota police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile while the latter was allegedly reaching for his identification. Diamond Reynolds, Castile&#8217;s girlfriend, streamed the aftermath on Facebook Live:
<iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VeVv9kJLAk4" width="560"></iframe>
The incident lit up social media, leading to Officer Yanez being charged with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/16/prosecutors-to-announce-update-on-investigation-into-shooting-of-philando-castile/?utm_term=.21d8c176f35f">second-degree manslaughter</a>.
Now, Diamond Reynolds is in hot water after allegedly assaulting a woman with a hammer in St. Paul, Minnesota, on February 28.
According to <a href="http://www.fox9.com/news/239395880-story">KMSP</a>, when a woman noticed she was being followed by a white SUV, she pulled into a parking lot. As she exited her vehicle, she saw Diamond Reynolds, and Chnika Blair:
<blockquote>
Reynolds punched the 24-year-old victim in the head with a closed fist and Blair grabbed her hair. At one point, Reynolds hit the woman in the head with a hammer, causing her to fall to the ground. While the victim was on the ground, Reynolds continued to hit her in the head with a hammer, causing her to black out for a moment.
The victim told police, Reynolds then with the hammer hit the victim&#8217;s car&#8217;s windshield, breaking it. While the woman tried to get up, another vehicle pulled up and Dyamond Richardson got out and started spraying bear mace at the victim, who started to run away.
</blockquote>
After the melee, the victim was treated at a local hospital, later identifying her assailants. Astonishingly, Richardson claims this was just part of an ongoing fight between the victim and the three women.
<a href="http://www.twincities.com/2017/03/03/philando-castiles-girlfriend-arrested-in-alleged-hammer-assault/">The Twin Cities Pioneer Press</a> reports that Diamond Reynolds has been &#8220;charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and third-degree assault&#8211;inflicting substantial bodily harm.&#8221; The other attackers, Blair and Richardson, have been charged with &#8220;aiding and abetting&#8221; Reynolds&#8217; crimes.

Remember the Woman Who Live-Streamed Philando Castile’s Death? She Allegedly Just Beat The Living Hell Out Of Someone With a Hammer.

Crime

St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez has been <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/ap/breaking-minnesota-officer-who-shot-philando-castile-charged-with-murder/">charged</a> with second-degree manslaughter in the killing of 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was shot and killed during a July 6 traffic stop in Falcon Heights.
<a href="https://www.ramseycounty.us/sites/default/files/County%20Attorney/Yanez%20Jeronimo%2011%2016%2016.pdf">Police authorities said</a> Yanez had fatally shot Castile by reacting to a gun; Yanez&#8217;s attorney argued that Mr. Castile had not <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/us/minnesota-officer-was-reacting-to-the-presence-of-a-gun-lawyer-says.html">followed the officer&#8217;s commands</a>.
Ramsey County attorney, John J. Choi <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/us/philando-castile-shooting-minnesota.html?_r=0">asserted</a>, &#8220;No reasonable officer &#8212; knowing, seeing and hearing what Officer Yanez did at the time &#8212; would have used deadly force under these circumstances.&#8221;
Castile&#8217;s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stay-calm-be-patient/2016/09/10/ec4ec3f2-7452-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html?tid=a_inl">streamed</a> what ensued after the shooting on Facebook Live, <a href="http://www.startribune.com/castile-lived-in-a-cycle-of-traffic-stops-fines/387046341/">said they were stopped</a> for a broken taillight. She claimed that Castile had a license to carry a weapon and that he had attempted to inform Yanez that he had a gun.
Yanez apparently believed Castile resembled the description of a robbery suspect.
By the time he was 30, Castile had been pulled over 44 times. He paid over $7,000 in misdemeanor tickets; his license had been revoked and reinstated repeatedly because he sometimes did not pay the fines. Of the 82 non-parking citations he was given over the years, 47 were dismissed.
In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that officers can stop a vehicle if they believe a traffic violation occurred.

Officer Charged In Philando Castile Shooting

On Tuesday, President Obama descended on Dallas to hijack the memorial service for five slain police officers. He&#8217;d planned to do this for days &#8211; his White House stated in advance that Obama would get political.
But for the first few minutes of Obama&#8217;s address, it appeared that he might take stock of the moment and hold himself back.
Then it all collapsed.
Here are the seven worst moments of his latest opportunistic, highly political, egregiously inappropriate address:
1. Equating The Murders of The Dallas Police Officers With The Killings of Alton Sterling And Philando Castile. This is a trap into which the left has fallen consistently this week. It&#8217;s lazy thinking, and more importantly, it&#8217;s morally repugnant. The police officers murdered in Dallas were targeted because of their race. We know that for a fact. That is not speculation. They were targeted because they were white. We know virtually nothing about the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile cases. The police allege that Sterling resisted arrest and reached for a gun he was carrying illegally. We have no evidence yet as to what happened with Philando Castile, but there is certainly no evidence that it was a racially-motivated shooting. Nonetheless, Obama said, &#8220;I see people who mourn for the five officers we lost, but also weep for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. In this audience, I see what&#8217;s possible.&#8221; Not all killings are equal. But to Obama, targeted killing of whites is equivalent to police killing blacks in disputed circumstances.
2. Suggesting That Today&#8217;s Police Departments Are Still Rife With The Legacies of Slavery And Jim Crow. The year is now 2016. Arrest statistics match up precisely with crime report statistics. There is no evidence of systemic discrimination against minorities. But that didn&#8217;t stop Obama from stating, &#8220;We also know that centuries of racial discrimination, of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow; they didn&#8217;t simply vanish with the law against segregation&#8230;we know that bias remains. We know it, whether you are black, or white, or Hispanic, or Asian, or native American, or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We&#8217;ve heard it at times in our own homes&#8230;.No institution is entirely immune, and that includes our police departments. We know this.&#8221; Remember, Obama isn&#8217;t just wrong here &#8211; he&#8217;s saying this in front of the families of officers killed by a black anti-cop, anti-white racist. Despicable.
3. Reeling Off Meaningless Statistics To Indict Police. Obama&#8217;s favorite game is to pretend that minorities are unfairly targeted by police, without citing higher rates of criminal activity among minorities. Here was Obama today &#8211; again, at a memorial service for fallen officers: &#8220;if you&#8217;re black, you&#8217;re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested; more likely to get longer sentences; more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime.&#8221; Actually, studies show that blacks speed more often; have longer rap sheets and therefore are imprisoned for longer; and are underprosecuted for murder thanks to lack of police resources in high crime communities.
4. Defending The Black Lives Matter Agenda. Dallas police officers were defending protesters &#8211; some of whom were mocking them &#8211; as a black anti-white racist shot at them. That didn&#8217;t stop Obama from backing the protesters&#8217; agenda, without evidence. &#8220;When all this takes place, more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members, again and again and again, it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.&#8221; Odd. President Obama dismissed anyone who said he was lying about Obamacare as a kook; he called Tea Partiers terrorists. He&#8217;s happy to deny the experiences of people who actually know what&#8217;s going on in government, but he insists we legitimize the feelings of people who ascribe nasty motives to the cops without evidence beyond the anecdotal.
5. Pushing Government Spending. Obama stumped for more government cash, of course &#8211; but not on cops. On social programs that have failed for generations: &#8220;As a society, we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment.&#8221; We don&#8217;t &#8220;allow&#8221; poverty to fester &#8211; unless the &#8220;we&#8221; is Obama Democrats who refuse to fund the cops properly so that they can establish law and order in high crime areas, allowing for investment.
6. Pushing Gun Control. Obama dropped this whopper: &#8220;We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.&#8221; As I wrote today, you have to have been <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/7407/obama-hijacks-officer-memorial-lies-its-easier-buy-ben-shapiro">dropped on your head as a small child</a> to believe this.
7. Ignoring Solutions. This was the key point: Obama thinks that solutions are secondary to talking about feelings. He believes he&#8217;s the national psychiatrist. &#8220;In the end, it&#8217;s not about finding policies that work. It&#8217;s about forging consensus and fighting cynicism and finding the will to make change.&#8221; This is perhaps the most concise summary of Democratic nincompoopery ever spoken. It isn&#8217;t government&#8217;s job to heal your soul. It&#8217;s government&#8217;s job to solve problems like crime. But Obama doesn&#8217;t care about that. He thinks he&#8217;s a soul-healer, and that government is the Great God-Being that can save us all, so long as we open our hearts to it.
Obama is a petty politician. And he used an important stage to air his petty politics. That&#8217;s despicable. And it&#8217;s tragic, too, because he&#8217;s a politician of unique rhetorical capacity. There were sections of his speech in Dallas that were quite beautiful. But he let his leftism swamp his better judgment, and the result was a moral turd sandwich.

7 Disgusting Things Obama Said While Hijacking Memorial For Slain Dallas Police

Alton Sterling

Barack Obama

Dallas

Police

Shooting

As the investigation into Philando Castile&#8217;s death unravels and controversy ensues over <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/7268/7-things-you-need-know-about-philando-castile-pardes-seleh">what happened</a> last week, here are some details we thought you might like to know:
1. Castile was pulled over for more than a broken tail light. 
In the Facebook live video circulated last week by Diamond &#8220;Lavish&#8221; Reynolds in the aftermath of Castile&#8217;s death, she told her viewers that Castile was &#8220;shot for no reason&#8221; and pulled over for a broken tail light. Reynolds added that the cop who pulled Castile over was &#8220;Chinese,&#8221; and that he shot him because he was black.
The cop, <a href="https://www.everipedia.com/jernonimo-yanez/">Jeronimo Yanez</a>, was put on administrative leave as per standard policy regarding officer-involved shootings.
&#8220;I can tell you that the stop of the vehicle for an equipment violation was not the only reason for the stop,&#8221; Yanez&#8217;s lawyer, Thomas Kelly, told Fox 9 News. 
In a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/7268/7-things-you-need-know-about-philando-castile-pardes-seleh">press statement</a> last week, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (D) told reporters he saw Castile&#8217;s shooting as an act of racism that would not have occurred if the the driver were white.
&#8220;The governor did not have all the information when he was called upon to make the remarks,&#8221; Kelly said. &#8220;He only had a very limited perspective on this. In my opinion, and in the opinion of others, this use of deadly force would have occurred regardless of the race of the driver.&#8221;
<div class="media_embed"><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="360px" width></iframe></div>
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension wrote:
<blockquote>
At approximately 9:05 p.m. Wednesday, the two St. Anthony police officers conducted a traffic stop near the intersection of Larpenteur Avenue West and Fry Street in Falcon Heights. Castile was the driver of that vehicle. Officer Yanez approached the vehicle from the driver&#8217;s side and Officer Kauser from the passenger side. At one point during the interaction, Officer Yanez discharged his weapon, striking Castile multiple times. No one else was injured. A gun was recovered at the scene.
</blockquote>
A press release from the St. Anthony Police Department indicated two armed men had robbed the Super USA store on the 2400 block of Larpenter Avenue in Lauderdale at around 7:30 p.m. on July 5th. Some sources are connecting Castile&#8217;s shooting with the armed robbery, based on audio recordings and surveillance photos that look like Castile. The following are <a href="http://eastsidereviewnews.com/articles/2016/07/05/armed-robbers-hit-lauderdale-convenience-store">surveillance photos</a> of the men involved in the armed robbery: 
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt class="media-element file-default" data-fid="9875" data-media-element="1" height="394" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/suspect_-_shades_with_gun.jpg" width="700" /></div>
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt class="media-element file-default" data-fid="9876" data-media-element="1" height="394" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/suspect_-_weed_hat_with_cigs.jpg" width="700" /></div>
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt class="media-element file-default" data-fid="9877" data-media-element="1" height="394" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/suspect_-_weed_hat.jpg" width="700" /></div>
A police audio recording recovered by <a href="http://www.kare11.com/mb/news/police-scanner-audio-1/267042738">KARE 11 News</a> indicates two officers had been searching for the crime suspects and thought they had found one of them.
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to stop a car,&#8221; one officer is heard saying. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to check IDs. I have reason to pull it over.&#8221;
&#8220;The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery&#8230; The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just &#8216;cause of the wide set nose,&#8221; the officer continues.
<blockquote>
Officer: &#8220;Shots fired Larpenteur and Fry.&#8221;
Dispatch: &#8220;Copy you just heard it? &#8230; You just heard the shots fired?&#8221;
Officer: (screaming) &#8220;Code 3! Shots fired.&#8221;
Dispatch: &#8220;Copy shots fired Larpenteur and Fry. Do you need medics?&#8221;
Officer: &#8220;Code 3!&#8221;
Dispatch: &#8220;Copy. Medics &#8212; code 3 to Larpenteur and Fry.&#8221;
Officer: &#8220;One adult female taken into custody. Driver at gunpoint.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Police have not confirmed whether this audio had anything to do with Castile&#8217;s case or a different investigation.
2. Castile had a valid carry permit at the time of his death.
The Ramsey County Sheriff&#8217;s Office denied issuing a carry permit to Castile, and the public assumed it meant he didn&#8217;t have one.
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/cameron_dehart">@cameron_dehart</a> Mr. Castile never applied for a permit to carry with our office. Therefore we did not issue his permit.
&#8212; Ramsey Sheriff (MN) (@RamseySheriff) <a href="https://twitter.com/RamseySheriff/status/751133768048480256">July 7, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
However, Kelly told Fox 9 Castile &#8220;had a permit to carry a gun. The officer did not know that at the time of the shooting, and he did not know with any certainty whether the gun was present with a permit or not a permit.&#8221;
Reynolds emphatically backed this claim in her video and repeatedly afterward. 
&#8220;He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,&#8221; she <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/7268/7-things-you-need-know-about-philando-castile-pardes-seleh">said</a>.
&#8220;Regardless of whether it was permitted or not, the actions of Mr. Castile and his failure to comply with directions from Officer Yanez was what led to this,&#8221; Kelly said on behalf of Yanez. 
Ramsey County Attorney Jeffrey Choi <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kJnMYWghk">said</a> Yanez will not be prosecuted unless it is found &#8220;beyond a reasonable doubt&#8221; that his shooting of Castile was not in self-defense.
&#8220;In order to bring criminal charges against a police officer for using deadly force in the line of duty, Minnesota law requires the State to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of force was not justified,&#8221; Choi wrote in a press <a href="https://www.ramseycounty.us/sites/default/files/County%20Attorney/7%208%2016%20County%20Attorney%20remarks%20regarding%20the%20death%20of%20Philando%20Castile.pdf">statement</a>.
3. The little girl in the viral Facebook live video is not his daughter. 
Media <a href="http://fusion.net/story/322473/who-is-philando-castile/">sources</a> had quickly assumed the 4-year-old shown in Reynolds&#8217; live-stream video is Castile&#8217;s daughter. In an ABC <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/girlfriend-philando-castile-urges-violence-protests-interview/story?id=40489352">interview</a> today, Reynolds described Castile as her daughter&#8217;s &#8220;role model.&#8221; Reynolds frequently posted videos of herself with her daughter as she smoked weed.
<div class="media_embed"><iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oS65iYaF0zg" width="420px"></iframe></div>

<div class="media_embed"><iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WpovhVKUvlg" width="420px"></iframe></div>
Castile&#8217;s Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/philando.castile?fref=ts">profile</a> describes him as &#8220;single,&#8221; but <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007611243538&amp;fref=pb&amp;hc_location=friends_tab&amp;pnref=friends.all">videos</a> suggest he and Reynolds were romantically involved.
4. Castile believed in hard work.
Castile&#8217;s cousin Antonio Johnson <a href="http://www.startribune.com/aftermath-of-officer-involved-shooting-captured-on-phone-video/385789251/#1">told</a> the Star Tribune that he graduated from St. Paul Central High School with honors and straight-A&#8217;s. Johnson used adjectives such as &#8220;a real upstanding citizen,&#8221; &#8220;by the book,&#8221; and &#8220;very non-confrontational&#8221; to describe his cousin. His uncle, Clarence Castile, described him as a &#8220;good kid,&#8221; and his girlfriend described him as a &#8220;good man.&#8221;
&#8220;Philando Castile was an upstanding citizen, according to all the reports that we&#8217;ve heard,&#8221; Minnesota&#8217;s NAACP chapter <a href="http://www.startribune.com/aftermath-of-officer-involved-shooting-captured-on-phone-video/385789251/#1">told</a> reporters.
<div class="media_embed"><iframe frameborder="0" height="142px" width="500px"></iframe></div>

5. Castile reportedly ranted against Jews on Facebook. 
The following was recovered from his Facebook page by an online <a href="http://gotnews.com/breaking-philandocastile-falconheightsshooting-crips-gangmember/">webpage</a> before access to Castile&#8217;s posts up until 2011 became blocked from the public:
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt class="media-element file-default" data-fid="9878" data-media-element="1" height="201" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/castile-antisemitism.jpg" width="392" /></div>
There is currently no public evidence, however, supporting justifications for Castile&#8217;s fatal shooting.
Follow Pardes Seleh on <a href="https://twitter.com/PardesSeleh">Twitter</a>.

suspect_-_shades_with_gun

Who Was Philando Castile? 5 SHOCKING Things You Need To Know

On Friday, Matt Lewis penned a well-considered, moving piece about his realizations regarding police treatment of black Americans. Here&#8217;s <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/08/a-confession/">what he writes</a>:
<blockquote>
In the era of Facebook Live and smart phones, it&#8217;s hard to come to any conclusion other than the fact that police brutality toward African-Americans is a pervasive problem that has been going on for generations. Seriously, absent video proof, how many innocent African-Americans have been beaten or killed over the last hundred years by the police&#8212;with little or no media coverage or scrutiny? There&#8217;s no telling the damage this has done to us collectively, not to mention the specific families and individuals that were victimized. And, of course, the long-term psychic damage transcends the physical. All sorts of negative externalities can be expected of someone who rightly feels he&#8217;s living under an occupying army.
</blockquote>
Lewis goes on to indict white Americans for turning a blind eye to anti-black police brutality: &#8220;This default assumption that the police officer was always right is, I&#8217;m sure, what a lot of well-meaning and decent middle class white people were raised to believe&#8230;. Those days are gone. Decent Americans cannot turn a blind eye to police abuse; they just didn&#8217;t really believe the it was happening.&#8221;
Lewis apparently wants to, at least in part, reverse the presumption of decency and innocence for cops policing black communities. This is somewhat understandable when you realize that in a cop-suspect confrontation, someone will be presumed guilty by the public without further evidence &#8211; either the cop or the suspect. Generally, the public acknowledges that the presumption runs in favor of the cop. In light of cellphone footage, however, Lewis wants to consider flipping that presumption. While acknowledging that most cops aren&#8217;t racist, he says that &#8220;police brutality toward African-Americans is a pervasive problem&#8221;; that&#8217;s advancing the argument that if we see a piece of cellphone footage, we should immediately assume the significant possibility of racism, without any further evidence. This accusation toward cops is simply too vague. What level of presumption of decency should cops receive? Lewis doesn&#8217;t really say.
To support his argument, Lewis seems to advance four basic premises:
<ol>
<li>Smart phone footage demonstrates that police treat minorities differently;</li>
<li>Police aren&#8217;t punished often enough for racist behavior;</li>
<li>White people who refuse to acknowledge either of the prior two premises are part of the problem;</li>
<li>Even if there&#8217;s a wrongful perception in the black community that (1) and (2) are true, that requires a solution.</li>
</ol>
Three of these four arguments are deeply problematic.
First, smart phone footage is by nature anecdotal. It does not reflect statistical trends. We can all acknowledge that the footage of the aftermath of Philando Castile&#8217;s shooting is absolutely heartbreaking and horrifying &#8211; and looks terrible for the cop. That does not mean that such incidents are commonplace. If they are, we need actual evidence of that fact.
Beyond that, cell phone footage also tends to be selective. We don&#8217;t know what happened before Philando Castile was shot, or when he was shot. We just know what happened after he was shot. Drawing hard and fast conclusions based on that might be a major mistake.
Furthermore, because cell phone footage is simply footage of behavior, there is almost never a way to tell what&#8217;s going on inside the heads of the officers. Can you watch the Philando Castile footage and determine that the cop is a racist? If so, how? How can Minnesota&#8217;s governor read the mind of the cop and say that this stop would have gone differently for a white man, without evidence? Does he know the cop?
And isn&#8217;t it possible &#8211; probable, actually &#8211; that the cellphone footage we see from racial incidents tends to be more commonplace and worse because (a) people in common confrontations with cops tend to grab their cameras for such confrontations more often, and (b) cops tend to act more aggressively &#8211; in ways that many white people don&#8217;t acknowledge &#8211; in high-crime areas, which are disproportionately minority?
Second, Lewis make the case that cops aren&#8217;t punished enough. In this case, statistics aren&#8217;t enough &#8211; we need to see which cops are let off the hook for crimes they should not be. Americans generally hate when this happens (see, for example, the Rodney King trial). Simply stating that cops regularly &#8220;get away with it&#8221; more often than other citizens is unhelpful if we don&#8217;t know the circumstances in which the cops shot suspects.
Third, Lewis implies that white people must acknowledge the feelings of black people about the police or risk becoming part of the problem. That&#8217;s certainly true with regard to historic black treatment at the hands of the police &#8211; everyone acknowledges that blacks were treated far more brutally by police until recent decades. But that&#8217;s not true now. In fact, saying that cops aren&#8217;t friendly and aren&#8217;t there to help when it comes to black people is damaging to black people, who require more law enforcement in their communities, not less. Innocent black people more than any other population require societal reinforcement that the cops are there to help &#8211; otherwise, black communities do not receive the help they need, thanks to widespread perceptions that the police are the problem.
Like Lewis, I was brought up to believe that the cops are friendly and want to help. Obviously, that isn&#8217;t always true &#8211; there are some terrible cops, just as there are some terrible members of every profession. Criminals cops should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, of course.
And it would be foolish to deny subjective experiences with police. But by the same token, it&#8217;s foolish to pretend that police are automatons. They are far more likely to behave brusquely in situations in which they are more likely to encounter aggression. Isn&#8217;t it more probable that if I lived in a high-crime community, in which police were at significantly higher risk of personal danger, I&#8217;d receive different treatment than if I lived in a low-crime community? Doesn&#8217;t that have less to do with race than the level of criminality in the community being policed?
That&#8217;s cold comfort to innocents who have to deal with harsher treatment from police. But that doesn&#8217;t meant he solution is to label the police racist, or to accept the notion that the presumption of innocence doesn&#8217;t apply with the cops.
Which brings us to the fourth premise: that we require a solution based on perceptions of racism. Certainly that&#8217;s true. And Lewis&#8217; suggestion that we all back body cams is fair &#8211; pretty much everyone already does. But it doesn&#8217;t go far enough. If we truly want to end the widespread fear of cops, pretending that statistical outliers are representative of broad trends doesn&#8217;t do it. When the president goes on television and states that Alton Sterling and Philando Castile weren&#8217;t &#8220;isolated incidents,&#8221; he&#8217;s not just statistically wrong &#8211; he&#8217;s forwarding an immoral view of the universe that will result in more dead people, both cops and innocents. The solution to cop-community conflict is safe communities. That requires more cops. And instead of ripping all cops, the solution is shockingly simple: rule of law. When cops do bad things and we have evidence of it, we prosecute them and condemn them. When cops don&#8217;t, we don&#8217;t. Intellectual honesty and compassion &#8212; on all sides &#8211; is the best solution to a problem that won&#8217;t be solved with grand statements about systemic problems.

What Cell-Phone Videos Can’t Tell You About Police Treatment of Blacks

Less than 48 hours after videos of the shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana were posted to social media, a harrowing new video emerged of a woman whose boyfriend had just been shot by police during a traffic stop. 
Lavish Reynolds, the girlfriend of 32-year-old Philando Castile, began live streaming a video of herself and her boyfriend in her car minutes after he was shot by a police officer through the window of her front seat. The video, taken in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, was posted to Facebook Live at approximately 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday. 
&#8220;We got pulled over for a busted taillight in the back,&#8221; Reynolds begins. &#8220;And the police just -he&#8217;s covered, they killed my boyfriend, he&#8217;s licensed to carry and he was trying to get his ID and his wallet out his back pocket, and he let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm.&#8221; 
<div class="media_embed"><iframe frameborder="0" height="644px" width="560px"></iframe></div>
Castile is seen in the background, moaning and losing consciousness. The officer sounds frustrated, yelling at Reynolds to stay put and saying, &#8220;I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hands up!&#8221; Reynolds responded calmly, &#8220;You told him to get his ID, sir, his driver&#8217;s license.&#8221;
&#8220;Oh my God. Please don&#8217;t tell me he&#8217;s dead. Please don&#8217;t tell me my boyfriend just went like that,&#8221; Reynolds said, facing the camera, continuing, &#8220;Please don&#8217;t tell me this lord, please Jesus don&#8217;t tell me that he&#8217;s gone. Please don&#8217;t tell me that he&#8217;s gone. Please, officer, don&#8217;t tell me you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration sir.&#8221;
The cops then ordered Reynolds to get out of the car and walk toward the police car they had waiting. A child&#8217;s voice is heard in the video. 
&#8220;They threw my phone, Facebook,&#8221; Reynolds is heard saying as her camera faced the sky. She is heard sobbing, &#8220;please don&#8217;t tell me that he&#8217;s gone.&#8221;
As she is sitting in the back seat of the cop&#8217;s car, the video shows, Reynolds continues to relate what was happening:
<blockquote>
We[&#8216;re] in the back seat of the police car. Sister call me, the police just shot my boyfriend for no apparent reason. My phone is about to die. They shot him. He shot him three times because he had a busted taillight. He asked him for license and registration. He told the man that it was in his wallet but he had a pistol on him because he is licensed to carry. And the officer told him don&#8217;t move and as he was putting his hands back up the officer shot him in his arm about four or five times.
</blockquote>
She continued to describe where she was and asked her sister to pick her up from the police station. &#8220;We had a busted tail light and we have some weed in the car. That&#8217;s about it.&#8221;
Reynolds began profiling the officer. &#8220;It was a Chinese police officer that shot him. He&#8217;s Chinese, he&#8217;s about five-five, five-six and a half, heavy set guy.&#8221; She faced the camera toward the window and pointed out the police officer who did it, then broke into tears. Her daughter sat next to her and comforted her as she urged her viewers to pray for her and pick her up from the scene.
Footage from last night&#8217;s shooting, by all accounts, reflected a tragic scene. Full details of the federal investigation into Castile shooting are still unraveling. Here are seven details you should know:
1. Castile was a <a href="https://www.everipedia.com/philando-castile/">licensed gun carrier</a> at the time of his death, according to family members.
&#8220;He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,&#8221; his girlfriend said.
In a CNN interview this morning, Castile&#8217;s mother said she had always warned her son to carry only with a license. She <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/07/07/philando-castile-mother-uncle-interview-full-newday.cnn/video/playlists/philando-castile-shot-in-minnesota/">added</a> that earlier that day her son and daughter &#8220;had a conversation about the concealed carry permits that they both had, and they were saying that &#8211; to be cautious -and my daughter said, &#8216;You know what? I don&#8217;t even want to carry a gun because I&#8217;m afraid that they&#8217;ll shoot me first and then ask questions later.'&#8221;
During a news briefing this morning, officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/07/minn-cop-fatally-shoots-man-during-traffic-stop-aftermath-broadcast-on-facebook/">confirmed</a> that a handgun had been recovered from Castile&#8217;s body.
2. Castile was pronounced dead shortly after the video was taken, at a local Minneapolis hospital.
A family member of Castile told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/07/minn-cop-fatally-shoots-man-during-traffic-stop-aftermath-broadcast-on-facebook/">Washington Post</a> that he was dead, and police confirmed his death later in a press release.
3. A federal investigation into the shooting is underway, state officials say. 
In a press statement, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (D) said he had asked White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, to ask that the Justice Department begin a federal investigation into the shooting. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has begun an investigation of the shooting, police confirmed this morning.

<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Statements from Gov. Dayton and Lt. Gov. <a href="https://twitter.com/tinaflintsmith">@TinaFlintSmith</a> on the Death of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PhilandoCastile?src=hash">#PhilandoCastile</a> <a href="https://t.co/v2SSDaXamh">https://t.co/v2SSDaXamh</a> <a href="https://t.co/75YuwElqWy">pic.twitter.com/75YuwElqWy</a>
&#8212; Governor Mark Dayton (@GovMarkDayton) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovMarkDayton/status/751102520097857536">July 7, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
FBI director James Comey <a href="https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/751109035445915649">said</a> he expects the agency to get involved in the pending investigation.
4. Castile and Reynolds were pulled over for a broken tail light, according to Reynolds.
&#8220;We got pulled over for a busted tail light in the back,&#8221; she had said. Police have yet to confirm this.
5. This was the first officer-involved shooting in the area for over the past 30 years, police say. 
Sgt. Jon Mangseth, interim chief at the St. Anthony Police Department, said this was the first shooting that he could remember in the department&#8217;s history. &#8220;We haven&#8217;t had an officer-involved shooting in 30 years or more. I&#8217;d have to go back in the history books, to tell you the truth,&#8221; he said, adding that the details of the shooting were unclear.
<div class="media_embed"><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="290px" width="480px"></iframe></div>
<blockquote>
&#8220;Please, officer, don&#8217;t tell me you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration sir.&#8221;
 
Lavish Reynolds, girlfriend of Philando Castile
</blockquote>
6. The officer who shot Castile was placed on administrative leave, as per standard policy in officer-involved shootings. 
Mangseth told reporters that the officer who had shot Castile had been working for the department &#8220;in excess of 5 years.&#8221; The race of the officer has not been confirmed by officials, but Reynolds described him as &#8220;Chinese.&#8221;
7. Castile was said to have no major criminal history. 
Sources pointing to his Facebook profile say he <a href="https://www.everipedia.com/philando-castile/">often made political statements</a>, such as posting a Black Panthers photo accompanied with a Malcolm X quote, &#8220;BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.&#8221; In another post he had quoted 2pac, &#8220;They got money for wars but can&#8217;t feed the poor.&#8221;
According to the Star Tribune, &#8220;Minnesota court records show only misdemeanors and petty misdemeanors on Philando Castile&#8217;s record.&#8221;
Follow Pardes Seleh on <a href="https://twitter.com/PardesSeleh">Twitter</a>.

Menu