Previous Post
Next Post

Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 8.40.05 AM

“Authorities say that a man is dead after being shot by police Wednesday evening after being pulled over in a traffic stop. The incident took place in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, near Minneapolis.” In the video at CNN.com (click the image above to view) Philando Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, describes what happened — in a remarkably calm manner — from inside the car as the wounded man bleeds next to her.

“Stay with me,” are the first words heard in her video. “We got pulled over for a busted tail light in the back.”

The camera shows the woman speaking, then turns to a man in a white shirt, covered in blood. Out the window appears to be a police officer with his gun drawn.

The footage was streamed on a Facebook account under the name Lavish Reynolds. WCCO spoke to Castile’s family who identified the woman as Diamond Reynolds.

In the video’s first minute, Reynolds says that Castile is licensed to carry a firearm. She claims that before the shooting, her boyfriend was trying to get his ID from his wallet in his back pocket.

This is the second arguably questionable shooting of an armed black man in the last 72 hours, both at least partially captured on video.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Assistance, a state-wide criminal investigative agency, was called and is investigating the incident, (interim St. Anthony police chief Jon) Mangseth said. “We will release the information as we learn it, and we will address concerns as we are faced with them,” he said.

This could be a long, hot summer.

Previous Post
Next Post

332 COMMENTS

  1. Now THIS is far more probably a bad shoot. But hey, I’m sure people who can’t be bothered to tell the difference between a pedophile resisting arrest and a motorist getting his license will be all over this.

    • The Baton Rouge man’s past criminal history has no bearing on how the police handled that situation. The man was 20 years old at the time of his sexual misconduct and served 4 years in jail for it. He was illegally armed at the time but did not at any point. He was confused and wanted to know why the police were at the scene arresting him. He was tased then violently tackled before being shot. There is a second video that shows him on his back with his palms open and facing up while the officers were on top of him.

      Both incidents appear to be men being exicuted by the people that are paid to protect them. Very sad that the police are so fearful of black men that they can not effectively do their job.

      • Ahh the recasting has begun. One of the Michael Brown supporters, eh?

        The Baton Rouge man was a piece of human garbage, who was continuing to resist arrest. He was huge, resisting, and was carrying an illegal firearm. As a middle-class white man, I would expect to be shot for doing the same thing, because the officers would reasonably fear for their lives. I guess it’s different when you get to play your race card, huh?

        The motorist incident looks to be tragic, and a bad shoot. Hopefully the investigation at least end the cop’s career.

        • >accuses others of recasting
          >keeps talking about criminal history as if it is relevant

          Yep, it is the bootlicker MO.

        • Career ending is not enough.

          A bad shoot should result in prison time.

          Law-enforcement is not above the law.

        • Why do you assume that I’m a Michael Brown supporter? Completely different case. That boy was up to no good leading up to his death.
          This particular case is wrong. This man had a clean background and was legally in possession of a firearm.
          Please be reasonable. Do you think this man would go through the entire process of getting a carry permit just to use his weapon on an officer? He had to have a clean criminal history as well as free of drugs because of the kind of job he held at a local school. No one allows criminals to work around kids for a living. This man has been on the right side of the law his whole life. Do you think he would risk it all (his life, his girlfriend and daughters safety) by pulling a gun on an officer during a traffic stop? I don’t believe that for one second. This man had a clean enough background to qualify him to do the same job of the man that executed him.

        • Why do I assume you’re a Michael Brown supporter? Rather simple, because you have the reading comprehension of my dog, that’s why.

          I did not say anything negative about the MN victim, yet you attempt to pretend I was speaking of him.

          Please, all of you, go back to 3rd grade, where they should have failed you on reading comprehension. Learn how to actually read what someone has written.

      • If you’re going to accuse others of “recasting”, maybe you should stop doing it yourself. 🙂

        • So the jumbo-sized-gun-toting felon resisting arrest in Baton Rouge, or the MN man I said was a ‘victim’.

          Which one did I “recast” exactly?

          To quote Judge Smails, “Weeeellllllllll? We’re waiting.”

        • You post a reply in a thread on page 3 then ask for a timed reply. Cute. 🙂

          The recasting is when you drag a man’s record into the picture when it is entirely irrelevant to use of force (i.e. human garbage). You lie about resistance when from the video it is obvious that the most he can be seen doing is totally ineffectual squirming (much like Eric Garner). Naturally the bootlicker considers even that sort of squirming to be “resistance” worthy of a death sentence.

          “Illegal gun” – I do love it when TTAG commentators side with government gun control. Now, even if you agree with these gun control laws, does having a gun in his pocket warrant a death sentence? Apparently so. You can even see the cop pull the gun from the pocket after he murdered the man.

      • It’s not that they’re fearful, most patrol cops are plain morons who can’t process simple requests for reason as to why they’ve decided upon a certain course of action. The second you ask a question it’s deemed disrespect to their authority and the moment you don’t say something with absolute respect, you’re resisting arrest.

        I’m coming to the conclusion that patrol cops are utterly worthless. Sure, we need detectives for investigations of crimes, but what purpose does a juiced up pension collector who sits on his ass and hands out speeding tickets serve? A waste of tax dollars, I can protect myself better than any cop who can’t shoot the broadside of a barn and probably pisses himself whenever he hears the backfire from a car.

        • This is why revenue collectors (which is what a cop handing out traffic tickets is) should not be armed. They should be treated exactly the same as a $12/hr meter maid giving out parking tickets.

        • Well that is what we have to deal with. I always keep my insurance and registration in the visor, never the glove-box. Always tun on the map lights before the cop comes up. Will not tint my windows. But never have had a problem either.

      • The cops in both cases need to get life in prison. The one guy was shot in the back while cops held him down and the other was shot while going for his drivers license. It seems that the cops today are eager to get a kill under their belts. They should be put in a war zone. No cop should be under the age of 30, by then they may have grown up and got some common sense

      • Weren’t the police called to the scene in baton rouge because he was brandishing the firearm at someone?

        • An anonymous report said that. However, no witnesses corroborate that, and the man had been selling CDs there for 6 years without coming to the attention of the cops. And watch the video, hard as it is. His arms were at his sides, nowhere near his pockets, when he was shot. 2, then 3.
          It was murder, m’man.

        • It wasn’t anonymous, it was the homeless man who asked Alton for spare change who called 911 after Alton pulled a gun on him.

    • Yeah I agree. Whenever I pull someone over and they tell me they are carrying concealed it usually lends credence to the fact that they’re a responsible gun owner and most likely will not try to kill me. I realize that they are going to pull their license out so I’ve avoid shooting or even drawing down on one.

      • Whether I’m carrying or not, I get my license out the second I pull over before the cop is out of his car. That way I don’t have to reach near my gun and I also have my CCW license in my hand as well.

        • Finally, a helpful comment. Good going.

          Yes the Mn instance looks terrible. The ultimate legal carrier’s nightmare. Every practical suggestion to preclude this is needed.

        • Exactly! I just got pulled over 4 days ago. Had my wallet out as soon as I stopped so my hands did not have to go out of the officers sight. Along with my drivers license was my CCW, that way I do not have to say the word “gun” or “weapon”.

        • Yeah, a black man reaching in his pocket before the cop gets to the car sounds like a fine, fine idea to me.

          Are you kidding? Hands on the wheel, window down, don’t move.

        • int19h, I guess here’s what I don’t understand. You’re being pulled over. During the time between you see the cherries and hit the shoulder, one should have the license (and whatever else your locality demands) at the ready, in your hand, hands on the wheel.

          That’s the game, been that way since before I was driving 40 years ago. Pull over, roll down window, have your DL (+ whatever) in your hand, and your hands visible.

        • That’s the game, been that way since before I was driving 40 years ago. Pull over, roll down window, have your DL (+ whatever) in your hand, and your hands visible

          I don’t know where you got this from, but I’ve been driving for over 43 years and I never do that as it involves rummaging around in my glove box for insurance and registration. I learned at 16 years old back in 1972 that I didn’t want the cop to think I was getting something from there or putting something in there, trying to hide it. I’ve stayed out of jail doing that, and believe me, there were times where I could have gone to jail had I done anything that would have made the cop suspicious beforehand to where he wanted to search my vehicle.

          I keep everything aboveboard and in the open. Especially since cops now routinely shoot people.

    • True to form, BLM will instead rally behind the armed convicted felon and child molester who was shot while resisting arrest, after less-lethal methods proved ineffective, and this incident will go underreported and quietly expire becalse a legally armed and law-abiding black man doesn’t fit their disarmament narrative.

      • Past convictions have no bearing on the events that happened. Once the cops jumped on the citizen, he had every right to defend himself. PERIOD.

        • Oh shut the F up. They didn’t “jump on him”—they were arresting him FOR POINTING A GUN AT ANOTHER CITIZEN. When the cops show up to arrest you, you go. Work it out in court.

          What is wrong with you? NOBODY gets to fight the cops.

      • There is some seriously stupid shit being said in this thread. He had a prior conviction, and was illegally armed, but the weapon was never presented, and his hands were in the clear. He was NOT resisting arrest, as some of the ding-dongs in here claim, nor had he reached for his weapon. He was wrongfully killed, and the cops should be held responsible.

        • Are you repeating the wrong info or stating it yourself? He was not illegally armed, etc. Are you confusing this with the Baton Rouge incident of Alton Sterling being killed by Baton Rouge Police?

        • I’m addressing the Baton Rouge case that so many seem to think is another Michael Brown.

    • Nothing to add from me except watch your azz especially if legally armed…and if you’re going to riot THIS may be it. BTW I saw something similar (po-leece violence) on a video from last year in Hammond, Indiana. “How dare you reach for ID black dude!” Only there they proceeded to bust his window and drag him out. I believe it was featured onTTAG too…

      • But the honest truth is I can get my CW380 out of my pocket, quicker that my wallet. As soon as it clears you can shoot from the hip. I know exactly why cops hate it when you start reaching for a wallet. Under low light conditions in shoot houses, cops shot at plain-clothing cops holding badges in their hands all the time so don’t give me the BS that they should not shoot if I’m holding a wallet. DON’T REACH FOR ANYTHING unless you are instructed to.

        • So many people dissing cops without any idea of what it’s like on their side of the barrel. Do you defend yourself or hesitate until the impact takes you down? Much of the complaining is the fault of the public at large. Not that there are no bad apples on the various departments across the nation, but, in most jurisdictions, we do try to weed them out before they ever get to the street, or during their probationary period. We do not need them because the bad ones are just as apt to get us killed. People have watched cop shows for so many decades that they should know by now that odd movements, jerky movements, and reaching for the glove box or console are going to get a response. The best action a motorist can take is to sit there with their hands clearly visible and wait until the officer tells them what needs to be done. Arguing/resisting are not good actions. That goes for the passengers as well. Passengers can inflame the situation by their own actions or by inciting the driver to act inappropriately.

          In some jurisdictions, I can understand why the public gets pi$$ed at cops. But, at the same time, the officers in those jurisdictions are often at higher risk of being injured because of the very nature of the people who live there.

          For those who are not cops, remember that the more cooperative you are the less time it will take to be back on your way. For the cops, remember that, these are fellow citizens. As Rodney King said, ‘can’t we all just get along?’ Everyone deserves respect, cops and citizens alike, until they show they don’t deserve it.

        • Spare us the bullshit. Being a cop is less risky than being a truck driver or a pizza delivery guy. How many people do these shoot because “they want to go home safely”?

          Furthermore, the general public should not require lengthy training on how to interact with a police officer in order to survive a routine traffic stop. Cops are the paid professionals, who are supposedly trained to handle these things properly. The onus of dealing with complicated situations right is on them – that’s why they’re paid professionals. If it goes wrong, the first assumption should be that the cop mishandled it, not the other way around.

          Also, cops are being paid to do the risky job. Your average citizen is not. So when there’s inherent risk in that interaction, and the only choice is between risking the officer’s life and risking the citizen’s life, the choice should always be clear.

        • So many people dissing cops without any idea of what it’s like on their side of the barrel. Do you defend yourself or hesitate until the impact takes you down?

          Wait until impact? Did the guy even draw his gun? Did the guy even touch his gun? Did the cop ever see a gun? It doesn’t appear so.

    • Serge this is exactly what I was thinking as I read that CNN report.

      Maybe this guy should have handled the action of getting his wallet out a little more carefully — but that does not seem like justification at all for him getting shot and killed.

      Of course I wasn’t there and all of this in only guessing, but if I had to guess based on this information alone? Murder.

    • This is probably a good shoot. Why in the hell would you reach for anything after telling the officer you are armed. If he asks for you licence, you tell him where it is and where your gun is. Them make sure he has his finger off the trigger before moving. If he still has his finger on the bang switch he is a dumb ass and let him take your licence out of your pocket or have him call a supervisor and hope you don’t get shot

      • Reaching for anything is not a threat. We have to crack down on these armed government thugs who shoot first then lie about it. There was no reason for this cop to even have touched his weapon.

        • But the honest truth is I can get my CW380 out of my pocket, quicker that my wallet. As soon as it clears you can shoot from the hip. I know exactly why cops hate it when you start reaching for a wallet. Under low light conditions in shoot houses, cops shot at plain-clothing cops holding badges in their hands all the time so don’t give me the BS that they should not shoot if I’m holding a wallet. DON’T REACH FOR ANYTHING unless you are instructed to.

        • He was instructed to produce his ID. What is he supposed to do, teleport it from his pocket to the officer’s hand by his voodoo powers?

      • “If the victim isn’t able to read minds and figure out how this particular trigger-happy cop will react and act accordingly, it’s a good shoot!”

        This is what bootlickers actually believe.

    • “Resisting arrest”, you mean defending himself when tackled by an armed thug wearing a badge? Once that cop jumped on him, the citizen had every right to defend himself.

      • No, he didn’t. The police officers are empowered by the state to make arrests. What are they supposed to do if someone doesn’t want to be arrested, just say “Shucks, shame you feel that way.”, and let him go?

        You’re not serious with this nonsense, are you?

        • >> What are they supposed to do if someone doesn’t want to be arrested, just say “Shucks, shame you feel that way.”, and let him go

          They’re supposed to use such force as is necessary to carry out the arrest. That generally doesn’t include shooting the suspect point blank in the head when they’re already tackled.

          There are plenty of instances of people actively resisting arrest – just look at the video of any big anti-government demonstration in any country. Say, Russia in 2011. You can see how cops handle this – they pin the resisting person to the ground, put handcuffs on them, and then two people drag them into the police car. They have arrested several hundred people that way, and not one of them got shot.

          Are you saying that American cops are more incompetent than Russian cops?

    • The real difference is that the totalitarian PR machine, hasn’t yet come up with a proper hobgoblin moniker to scare the idiots with, wrt this latest shooting. I’m sure they will, though, and then everything will be a-ok again in bootstomperville. Maybe they can drag up some skank who will say he looked at her when he was 18 and she 17 and they were dating. ‘OMG, soooo lewd. I’m soooo exciiiited! It’s creeeeepii. The gommiment should dooo something….”

    • Pedophiles want preteens not teens, try again with the shit talking or maybe stick to the situation at hand not the past.

  2. If it turns out Castile was a good guy as the family asserts and IF this turns out to be a ‘bad shoot,’ will the MSM and race baiters go to bat for him, or ignore him and his story?

    On the larger note, things are falling apart before our eyes. I’m not a doom-n-gloomer and I can usually see the ‘positive.’ But the breakdown of our system – the entire thing – is happening.

    Serious question: Can the breakdown be stopped, or is it inevitable?

    Only one real answer to that question: No one knows.

    • Societal entropy cannot be stopped. The real question is how do you hide in plain sight, and still maintain? I bet there will be parallels between germans hiding jews beneath the floor boards and Californians (an soon enough everyone) hiding AR15’s and 30rd mags beneath the floor boards.

    • Time for the Union to split imo. The left statists will never stop until they have their empire.

      Let’s deny it to them for good.

      • Probably, but no way that happens in an amicable way like Czechoslovakia splitting up. The Secular-Progressives have no intention of ‘allowing’ anyone to escape their net.

        Either restoring America to a functioning Constitutional Republic or dividing the Union will result in massive upheaval and blood-shed domestically and internationally.

        • “The Secular-Progressives have no intention of ‘allowing’ anyone to escape their net.”

          Agreed, but it is not just the Secular Progressives.

          I know “religious conservatives” that say things along the lines of “The Union MUST be preserved.” They rationalize the North’s actions in the Civil War on this basis…preserving the Union is the first and foremost justification to disallow secession.

          So much for free people exercising self-rule and deciding their own government, eh?

      • Let’s give them their empire and let them choke on it they way Soviet Russia, Cuba and all the other socialist utopias have done. When they cannot steal the wages of productive citizens to support their socialist state because all the productive people have left they can come begging on their knees to be re-admitted to the the states that remained true to the Constitution.

      • Remind me again why I work near 70% of my time to finance the big government crime syndicate.

        It’s getting awfully hard to keep this nonsense up. I am starting to feel a little like a slave with his back against the wall.

        Just saying.

        • A few years ago I myself would have thought the idea was crazy. But is it really?

          What we are witnessing (primarily on the left but on the right too) is big government support like never before.

          People want everything to be taken care of for them and they are willing to give up all their rights for it. Not just in the USA but look at the UK. The Scots voted AGAINST their right to self determination and independence in favor of staying in the Kingdom. Then they voted to remain in the EU. Now that the leave movement won the Scots want to leave the UK so they can stay with the EU.

          These people are literally voting to stay in a bigger and bigger Empire. How weird is that?

          Is the Union really that important? No. It was about free constitutional states joining together to resist foreign tyranny. Granted there are trade and legal benefits as well. The constitution was the supreme law of the land which does not grant us our rights but rather tells the government what it CAN’T do. We recognize our rights to be NATURAL to us as free men, endowed to us by our creator (or nature for atheists).

          The USA has literally forgotten it’s a Union of free and independent states. Why should senators from California have input on laws that affect me in Texas? I can’t even vote for them and I sure as shit don’t care what the elite from CA, NJ or NY want.

          And this isn’t even considering what the left has become. It’s really bizarre and outright insane. They are adherents to a foreign ideology and are in direct opposition to the constitution.

          So yes I support a dissolution of the Union. California can have its liberal shit hole welfare state and I will live free in the constitutional republic of Texas.

        • Not to mention the fact that you don’t need or want the overwhelming majority of “services” you are forced to pay for.

          Want the border secure? They won’t do that. An honest FBI for criminal activity? They won’t do that. A strong military that puts defense first and pc crap last? Nope.

          But they’ll give themselves a raise over 170k per year that they keep as a 100% pension for life btw. And they’ll steal your money to feed some welfare queens kids. And I’m not against helping people. But I know how to help people in MY community better than any government official does. Imagine if Tom down the street losses his job and the neighborhood just pitches in to keep food in the fridge and the lights on until he finds work. Instead of someone you will never meet.

          Now what would the founding fathers have done to these current “leaders”

          Can we even say online?

      • You might be aware that it has already been tried. Four years of horrible fratricide, and a century of devastation for the old South. Count the cost first.

        • You make a fair point, and “count the cost” is a huge point, but, the dynamics have changed.

          The Civil War was largely a war of economic attrition. The South simply could not wage war against the more industrial North. To oversimplify it a touch, North had more money. The South produced raw resources but could not get them “to market.”

          But, those talking about secession these days are the producers and “control” (for lack of a better word) much of what it takes to form a stable economic system.

          Or to put as some of our more eloquently colorful brethren like to say…’we own the guns.’

          I’m not saying it’s cut and dry and “a done deal,” but I am saying the strict comparison to The War Between the States is not fully apples to apples.

    • They had marijuana in the car. Maybe drug laws are b.s. Maybe that same weed would be legal in another state. I get it.

      Still, in that state, it’s illegal, and these two knew that. They’re criminals in possession of drugs, not practicing civic disobedience and not heroic. I’m not taking anything the girlfriend says at face value. She seems high in the video, by the way. I bet the boyfriend was, too.

      We’ll just have to wait for all the evidence to come out, which will probably indicate mistakes were made by all parties.

        • Once a person breaks the law, or decides to live a criminal life, they no longer are in control of the outcome of their choices. When drug scum are killed by cops, its an outrage, but every day drug scum are killed by each other and there is no outrage that “drug dealing is not a capital offense.”

        • Vitsaus,

          Are we now into committing the same fallacy (Overgeneralization) as the anti-gunners by lumping “He had MJ in the car” with “drug scum?”

          Come on. Not all gun owners are criminals (as the anti’s claim) and not everyone that POSSESSES drugs are “drug scum.”

          We can do better in our debate than to fall to the level of the irrational anti’s.

          Or, do you have some actual evidence that this guy was a murderous, thug, drug “scum” dealer? And, if so, do you ALSO have evidence that the cop knew this on the side of the road?

          If not, it’s just intellectually lazy rationalization.

        • @Vitsaus
          Respectfully, that’s complete Bullsh*t. You don’t lose your human rights for carrying a plant where someone has said not to.

          Beyond that the Marijuana had absolutely ZERO impact on this situation. There’s no evidence that the police were even aware of it until they reviewed the victims confession on video.

          I’m an avid cop supporter, but all evidence so far points universally to this being a VERY bad 2nd-Degree shoot. (inappropriate panic response as opposed to pre-meditated murder)

        • There’s nothing particularly interesting or novel about it, your third rate sarcasm notwithstanding. The fact is that the world has had no compunction in punishing stupidity with death, ever.

          It’s a traffic stop, not a cocktail party or poetry recital. It’s an involuntary, forced stop on the side of the road for the purpose of investigating a crime. Such stops frequently yield evidence of other or ongoing major crimes. Sometimes they give rise to impromptu new and very serious crimes.

          If you have an encounter with an armed, anxious agent of the State under such circumstances, there will be suspicion and trepidation on that agent’s part. True or false? Given that it’s already a potentially volatile situation, wouldn’t you kinda sorta wanna have your crap together and not be stoned? It’s very easy to let good judgment fade and to let precision of communication and action slip when you’re under the influence, no?

          Nobody is saying that smoking weed warrants execution. You’re the one applying that foolish, if facetious, standard. What I am saying is that smoking weed renders you less equipped to negotiate even routine challenges, whether driving a car or complying with a traffic stop.

          You’re trying to play cutesy here in terms of what’s right or wrong, legally, morally, ethically or whatever. All I’m arguing is that making poor decisions tends to yield poor outcomes. It is what it is. Does a hungry man deserve to die for stealing a sandwich from your refrigerator in the middle of the night? Perhaps not, but that’s a poor decision which could easily come to that result.

        • DPH, see my response to the other guy who made that same lame remark.

          As for what’s wrong with me, I’ll plead to overestimating the reading comprehension skills of people like you. Mea culpa.

      • Where did you get the transporting pot info?

        If you don’t want to be profiled as a gangbanger I guess don’t dress/act like one (get a haircut and turn your damn hat around).

        Video is pretty damning for the popo. They shot the guy. Then throw the woman on the ground and arrest her? For WHAT? Not getting shot? thugs on a power trip.

        • @ Jonathan & Curtis:

          Because having weed = justification for the shoot? As usual, I’m waiting for more facts to come out before I make my decision; specifically if there is body cam footage that shows what happened before the cell phone video started. I am inclined to believe the officer hadn’t had time to find any weed before he drilled the guy and having weed in and of itself is not a reason to shoot.

        • NYC-
          I was simply responding to the question of where the information came from.

          Possessing marijuana doesn’t justify anything. It does tend to undermine the witness’ credibility.

      • She seems high in the video? Couldn’t be she’s just in shock from seeing her boyfriend murdered in front of her. Nah, she’s high and he maybe was too. Sorry, he’s high, he’ll just have to be shot. sarc off now.

        • We just be REEEEEEEEEEEEACHING for that justification. Lol.

        • DPH? Sooo….your “could be” not only trumps my “seems”, but also grants you right to claim a halo for open-mindedness? Oh that’s rich!

          At least my suggestion is backed by the fact she was in possession. Yours is backed by nothinh, as she does not exhibit signs of emotional shock. That’s just you applying pop psychology to give her the benefit of the doubt.

          NYC2AZ?
          Nobody’s claiming that smoking weed means you should be shot. I’m saying that being stoned could inhibit your ability to communicate effectively with an armed agent of the State, especially in terms of the GUN that you’re carrying, which could lead to fatal errors.

          Moral of the story: don’t get stoned and go deal with cops, because things can turn pear shaped real fast (also, get your tail light fixed and remove the justification for being stopped). Fair enough?

        • Note to self, don’t ever post an opinion contrary to Jonathan-Houston because he has a stick up his ass and will get all pissed off. Dude this is the internet and everybody has an opinion and they are like assholes, they all stink.

      • They were pulled over for a tail light being damaged. Not Marijuana! If weed was found inside of the vehicle, it wasn’t discovered until the man was dead. WTF is the piont you are trying to make by bringing this up?

        • THANK-YOU!!

          The ONLY legal justification for ‘deadly force’ is “imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”

          That’s it. And, it has to meet the “ability, opportunity and jeopardy” standard. How bad a guy is, was or will be is immaterial.

          The ONLY question at play is “Was there a credible threat to the officer’s life at the time of the shooting?” as would be answered according to the “Objective Reasonableness” legal standard.

          MJ in the car is a distraction worthy of the MSM’s “try him in the court of public opinion” horseshit.

      • Did you ever jaywalk, or had a light on your car stop working?

        I mean, maybe those laws are b.s., but if you have violated them, you might as well paint a target on yourself – it’s fair game for cops. Right?

      • When CA arrests me for failing to register my AR, are you going to come in here and tell everyone I was just a criminal? How many workers at Auschwitz were hanged for following orders? If we don’t stop this, if we can’t unite around protection of rights for everyone, not just those we agree with, then we deserve to lose our republic. The man went through all the requirements to get a CCW. He is as law abiding as I am. I have a CA CCW. I speed. I may have violated many other CA gun laws, some that would make me a felon if I was caught. I treat others with respect and I don’t take, damage or destroy other’s property. Am I just a criminal?

    • “If it turns out. . .”

      That this was just another MN badged-(D) dishing it out as “the man”. . .

      Then MN asked for it.

  3. This is a horrible and totally avoidable tragedy. I dare say it was 2nd degree murder or manslaughter.

    This is also an important time to remind people how to conduct themselves at a traffic stop.

    If Officer Friendly pulls you over, first and foremost put both hands on your steering wheel and keep them there while Officer Friendly approaches the vehicle. Passengers should put their hands in plain view as well. Of equal importance, do NOT reach for ANYTHING at a traffic stop, even your driver’s license, until you have had a good verbal exchange with the cop. Explain your LEGAL concealed status. Explain it again. Ask for feedback from Officer Friendly to make sure he/she understands. Then, and only then, ask Officer Friendly how to proceed. If Officer Friendly asks you for your driver’s license, ask him/her how to reach for it without Officer Friendly shooting you.

    • We don’t know at this point that all that advice was NOT followed by Castile.

      What a mess. Good shoot or not, this is NOT going to improve “trust relations” between the population at large and the police.

      I blame the media for a good bit of that eroding trust…the totally biased way they report stuff, including cop-shootings, spreads false messages and outright lies.

      But hey, Hillary’s skate is off the front page, now, right? Way to go, MSM…

      • The few times I’ve been pulled-over while carrying, before the officer gets to the car, I have my license, registration, proof of insurance, and CCW permit between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand, hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2, dome light on if it’s dark outside, and the window down at least halfway (depending on the weather, it may be fully down).

        When the cop asks for my info, I don’t have to reach for anything; it’s all right there, already in-hand. He can even reach in and take it without me moving at all, if that’s what he wants to do.

        This has worked well for me, and although some folks will think it’s overkill or giving up info I don’t have to provide, it has made these stops go very smoothly for me. I’ve talked about this procedure with cop acquaintances and relatives, and they’ve not pointed-out anything bad about it. Of note is the fact that I haven’t received a ticket during any of these stops, despite being clearly in the wrong in most of them.

        On the other hand, I’m an OFWG in a new-ish mid-priced vehicle, and that may be a better explanation for why my stops go so smoothly. YMMV.

        • Glad that works for you. Let us know the first time you are ordered out of your car at gunpoint because the officer saw you rummaging around in your car and thought you were reaching for and/or had a weapon ready to deploy against him.

        • Always a possibility, but so far, hasn’t happened. The fact that I don’t have to rummage around to find anything helps; I know exactly where everything is, and I keep 2 of the 4 items clipped to the overhead visor, where my hands are visible as I retrieve it. Sorting through your wallet at shoulder-height to get the other 2 items, vs down in your lap, also means they can see what you are doing from a distance. Hands clearly on the wheel as they approach, unmoving, with paperwork visible, seems to put them at ease, or at least, doesn’t rile them. As I said, YMMV.

          Not to minimize it, but it’s sorta like holding the receipt in your hand as you leave Walmart; whenever I do this, I’m far less likely to be asked to show my receipt at all. But again, the OFWG image may be working in my favor there, too.

        • @charles u farley
          “Let us know the first time you are ordered out of your car at gunpoint because the officer saw you rummaging around in your car”

          That’s an internet myth, and completely illogical. Please stop spreading misinformation.

          When would you rather make an officer nervous by digging around? When he’s sitting in his car unable to shoot you, or when he’s standing next to your head with his hand on his pistol?

        • NineShooter,

          Charles u farley beat me to the same reply: rummaging around in your vehicle is a bad idea. On the other hand, having everything already exposed such that you don’t have to rummage around in your vehicle, as you explained, solves that problem.

          Keeping your registration and proof-of-insurance in a dashboard storage location or attached to your sun visor is an excellent method.

    • How about instead of training individuals how to act around police we train the police to not shoot people who are doing nothing wrong? CCW is a real thing and police are going to have to accept that they are not the only people with deadly weapons now. Their monopoly on force is ending and it’s time they get over it and work with us instead of against us.

      • Impossible. The popo have been fully indoctrinated that “civilians” are out hunting them and every interaction will get them shot.

        In reality in MN only 9 cops have been killed by gunshot (any chain of events) since 2005.
        https://www.odmp.org/search?name=&agency=&state=Minnesota&from=2005&to=2016&cause=&filter=all

        The most frequent cause of LOD cop deaths its …………………………………. automobiles. Take away their cars and keep them on the sidewalks.

      • “How about instead of training individuals how to act around police we train the police to not shoot people who are doing nothing wrong? CCW is a real thing and police are going to have to accept that”

        This. 1000 times this.

        Even thought this way back when I worked in LE.

        For the cop side of the equation, nothing is helped by thinking that every person you see is a ‘bad guy’ and a ‘threat.’

    • Oh, I do have friends and family who were or are in some capacity involved in law enforcement. **even though I don’t identify with them as a constitutionalist…* Don’t forget, as soon as your pulled over….Turn on your interior car lights….It alleviates circumstances with a totally lit interior. As LEO friends of my family have stated….It also breaks down the P/O ‘s use of a high out put flashlight to shine in your eyes…When an LEO approaches, they can tell your in the know…When you do this. ..

    • The fact that there is a whole plethora of rules to follow when being pulled over by the cops to avoid the very real danger of being shot, speaks very much to the state of affairs we operate under on a day to day basis. I am not saying this is not the case, I am not saying this is not the reality, I am saying the reality is bullshit. I shouldn’t have to worry about making sure my hands are always visible, I shouldn’t have to have the 50/50 argument about do I get my paperwork ready before hand or do I wait for him to ask for it.
      Our police need a much higher level of training and education than they receive right now and they need to learn to deescalate situations.

      • “…The fact that there is a whole plethora of rules to follow when being pulled over by the cops to avoid the very real danger of being shot, speaks very much to the state of affairs we operate under on a day to day basis.”

        Robert, This, I believe, is the crux of the matter. We citizens have to prove/show our innocence or we’re probably guilty (of something to be determined later).

      • +1000, Robert. There is much revealed in this woman’s video. What got the guy killed was something that is an apparent common feature of such encounters. The cops give conflicting orders, “get your license and registration, keep your hands visible, don’t reach for your gun, etc., etc.” all shouted in an over-the-top “command voice”. Whether interactions like this are a function of cop culture, specific training, or, even worse, specific training that supports rather than changes cop culture, it’s dead wrong. I could go on about how police culture needs to change, but that isn’t going to happen. Criminology has been studying police culture for decades and the general consensus of this work isn’t at all good. If anything, things are going to get worse. I will say one thing, however. The “old school” cops I’ve talked to—most of whom are retired—are absolutely appalled at what’s happening in America’s police departments. This scene of a hysterical cop, pointing a gun at a man he’s just killed for having a broken tail-light is iconic. And that is not at all good.

      • I can get my pocket pistol out and shooting in less than two seconds, I understand why things are done a certain way.

        • It’s a risk for the cop. But as this encounter demonstrates, the way cops try to mitigate that risk is by, essentially, pushing it onto you instead. Effectively, our present arrangement replaces the risk of police officer to be shot by a Han Solo wannabe with the risk of a regular citizen being shot by a police officer who is scared of being shot.

          Now, here’s the thing. Police is supposed to be a relatively risky job, and the whole point of that job is to make the society safer for the rest of us by putting their neck on the line. It’s literally what we pay them for. So this approach of mitigating risks by raising them for the populace at large is directly contrary to the point of having a police force in the first place; at least if we’re talking about a free society (in tyrannies, police have a rather different function).

    • Look that is god advice – but it’s really up to the cop to make sure things move correctly. If this dead guy didn’t start out hands on the wheel and making careful movement he should have been instructed to do so.

      I don’t know – wasn’t there, but I will tell you this, the person on the streets I am most afraid of nowadays is cops.

  4. I don’t want to put on my tinfoil hat but it seems awfully convenient that this is happening now to distract us all from Hillary et al that the government is doing to us these days. Obviously these aren’t staged but I bet this happens on a daily basis and we never hear about it except when it suits a purpose. The videos, tweets, etc go “viral” and get plastered all over the media driving the conversation how the elites want it to go. This one definitely doesn’t look good for the cop though shooting a CCW holder.

    • The fact that it happened is coincidence.
      The fact that it is going viral is absolutely NOT coincidence.

      Anyone who thinks it is has no concept of how News-For-Profit organizations work.

    • Mmmm. I hadn’t thought of that, until now.

      I was not on board with the Brown thing. That guy was a dangerous, stupid thug and we are all better off that he’s taking a dirt nap. But, both of these two recent shootings don’t look good to me. I doubt that they are racist until I hear that one of the cops was a Grand Wizard or something.

      • Baton Rouge questionable. Michigan looks bad. Racist? Doubt it. Jumpy and ill prepared, but I doubt he thought LETS WASTE THIS BLACK GUY

        Any time a white cop kills a black person and it’s even someone questionable it’s going to be national news for the time being, and yes I find this timing to be extremely convenient for Hillary.

  5. When I get pulled over, I have my license and insurance card in my hand, and my hands on the steering wheel before the officer approaches. There’s plenty of time for that.

    Not laying any blame in this case, but it’s unwise to be in a position where you’re reaching into your pockets or glove box during a traffic stop.

    • So, you’re reaching into your pocket as the cop is walking up to the car? Or as he’s pulling up behind you? That’s just as problematic.

      • I’m reaching into my pocket while he’s still in his car behind me. He’ll run my plates and find out who I am (and the fact that I have a Concealed Carry License) before he gets out of his car.

        You know darn well he’s going to ask for your license and insurance card first thing. No excuse not to have it ready for him.

        • Whether he’s walking up to your car or still sitting in his, it’s foolish to go fiddling around in your car fetching anything. It could look like you’re hiding something you shouldn’t have, or retrieving something you don’t need.

          Just pull over, turn on your hazard and cabin lights (if nighttime), open all the windows, turn off the car and wait with your hands on the wheel.

          Keep calm, communicate directly, don’t make sudden or unannounced movements and you’ll be fine. Anything else and you risk greater inconvenience or worse.

        • Jonathan – Houston has words for the wise.

          Don’t go rummaging thru the glove box, console, under the seat after officer friendly turns on his lights.

        • “Don’t go rummaging thru the glove box”

          Interestingly, I was once pulled over in rural South Dakota (or ND, I don’t remember if I crossed the state line yet) and when the cop asked for my registration, I told him it was in the glove box…along with my handgun.

          The surprising part was that he asked me to retrieve the registration…slowly and deliberately.

          That cop was clearly not “offended” or “threatened” by the mere presence of a firearm at a traffic stop.

          Good for him; but, I would not have done that. I’d have said, “Okay, well, I guess we’ll proceed without your copy of your registration.” Why push it (for either party) over a piece of paper he doesn’t really NEED to see anyway (except to verify that it’s in the car)?

          Anyway, yeah; I agree. Don’t go reaching around and stuff before the ‘approach.’ Best approach is to just shut off the car and put hands on the wheel. When cop asks for x, tell him where it is and keep in communication, etc.

      • It is better to retrieve your license, registration and CCW card BEFORE the officer exits his vehicle and approaches. If you have these things ready and both hands on the wheel, window rolled down, engine shut off, by the time he starts walking towards you there should be no reason for him to suspect he is in danger. NEVER exit the vehicle unless he specifically instructs you to do so, don’t open your door even a little bit.

        Per Massad Ayoob (you may have heard of him), best policy is to have documents ready to hand to the officer when he arrives at your vehicle, but do not do ANYTHING until he instructs you to do it. When he asks for your license and registration ALWAYS hand him your CCW (state unconstitutional permission slip) along with other documents and inform him if you are or are not currently armed, along with the location of the firearm if it is in the vehicle. Following that follow his every instruction extremely precisely.

        In some locals, however, if you are black, all bets are off. It’s like casually discussing “bomb” in the TSA check line at the airport. If you are black do not let the word “gun” enter the conversation unless and until the officer brings it up. If you are black and live in a state that requires “duty to inform”, MOVE!

        • Might be safer to use the word “firearm”, not “gun”. Sets you apart from the guys who might say “I have a gun.” 🙂

      • @Lionsfan
        “So, you’re reaching into your pocket as the cop is walking up to the car? Or as he’s pulling up behind you? That’s just as problematic.”

        No. Its not. That’s internet mythology.
        You get your stuff squared away and sitting on the dash while you are coming to a stop, and while the officer is running your plates. This is typically a 5 minutes window to perform 20 seconds worth of tasks.

        Beyond that, when would you rather make a cop nervous by rummaging around?
        When hes sitting in his car unable to shoot you, or when he’s standing next to your unprotected head with his hand on his gun tensed for you to make the wrong move?

    • That’s a poor move on your part. If a cop sees you shuffling around as you’re being pulled over and before he/she arrives at your car, they’re going to be wondering what you were doing, regardless of you holding your papers or not.

      The only thing I do as I’m being pulled over (and due to a medical issue involving my right foot, it’s happened to me quite a few times over the years 😉 is roll down both driver and passenger windows half way, and activate my hazards once I’ve stopped. Once this is done I place my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel where they are clearly visible from outside the car. When the officer approaches, I greet him, and if I were carrying I would inform him of that fact, tell him exactly where the gun is, and ask him how he’d like to proceed.

      Regardless of the presence of a gun, when the officer asks for my license registration, I inform him of where each document is, and then narrate exactly what I’m doing while I very slowly and deliberately do it. “Okay, my registration is in the glove box, so I’m going to reach over here, open the glovebox, and pull out this plastic envelope containing my registration. My license is in my wallet in my back right pocket. I’m going to undo my seatbelt so I can reach for my wallet…” and so on.

      If I were carrying I’d probably just keep a copy of my license and registration on the sun visor, so all I’d have to do is reach up in one swift motion. Either way, I’ve had exactly one cop ask me why I was announcing my intentions with every movement; the rest have been very appreciative.

      • Well Blinky, after 30 years of driving and more traffic stops than I can remember, I’ve never been shot, and no police officer has questioned my behavior or complained about it. I am often let go without a ticket (even though I was speeding).

        So I guess I’ll continue to take my advice from friends who are police officers.

        • “So I guess I’ll continue to take my advice from friends who are police officers.”

          Very often that’s a bad move…but hey; your choice.

        • Well if you’ve never been shot that means you never will be; that’s what science tells us anyway. Best of luck to you!

      • Good to see you again, Pete. You’ve had practical experience with this, unfortunately.

        At night, *FIRST*, when the lights go on, immediately reach up and turn on the dome-interior light.

        NEXT, while pulling over, roll down driver side window.

        DO NOT reach for ANYTHING. When stopped, hands on the wheel and DO NOT MOVE THEM UNLESS INSTRUCTED.

        If asked for your license, paperwork, tell the cop where they are before slowly reaching for them.

        • The dome light thing isn’t something I’ve thought of, and oddly enough I can’t recall the last time I got pulled over at night. Good call though.

          I’m a firm believer in the hazard signals – not for the cop, but to give one more layer of protection between you and other (distracted) motorists.

      • “If a cop sees you shuffling around as you’re being pulled over…”

        Please stop spreading internet mythology.

        When would you rather make an officer nervous by rummaging around for your wallet – when he’s sitting 20 yards behind you in his car, unable to shoot you? Or when he’s standing next to your unprotected head with his hand on his pistol, tensed for you to make the wrong move?

        This is simple.

        • It’s not at all internet mythology, it’s common knowledge and personal experience. One of the first thing a cop is going to watch for is A) compliance and B) Signs that you are hiding something. Shuffling, nervous or twitchy, or reaching around as you’re pulling over as if you’re trying to stash something. A lot of times that’s exactly what people are doing.

          If I’ve got a gun, I’m going to calmly tell the cop that I’m legally carrying, because if I don’t and the gun surprises him I suspect it will play out much more closely to the scenario you’re outlining above.

        • “common knowledge” most often means “I have no data to support my position”.
          You can prove it has been repeated a lot (like most internet myths), but you cannot produce evidence that it is true.

          As for personal experience, mine conflicts with yours. I’ve been pulled over more than a dozen times, and not once has it made the officer respond negatively. In fact he’s usually happy that I have it ready and am not wasting his time.

          But coming full circle back to the demonstrated reality we just watched play out – REACHING FOR THINGS WHILE THE COP IS STANDING NEXT TO YOUR HEAD CAN BE LETHAL, even if he asked you to do it.

          I’ve never heard of a cop reacting to a sudden movement before he gets out of his car and killing a driver accidentally through two windshields from 20 yards away.

          Make a cop nervous from 20 yards away: Worst case scenario he yells at you with the loudspeaker.

          Make a cop nervous from 1 yard away: you stand a better-than-average chance of getting suddenly shot to death.

      • All you guys who are such experts at getting stopped by the cops must be doing something wrong to get so much practice. 🙂 Try driving a Volvo. I think they must be almost invisible to law enforcement. And observe the relevant laws, of course.

      • or laid out on the left side of the dash where he can see it as he walks up.

  6. IMO the officer over-reacted to the information that the (black) driver was armed. Never considered that he was an honest CCW, just “black man with a gun!”

    If that is the final determination of this shoot then the LEO needs to get negligent homicide, minimum. But considering what just happened with Hillary I won’t hold my breath. Just another dead black guy, nothing to see here, move along.

    It is possible that the victim did not go about informing the officer in a manner that seemed non-threatening. If he had a “duty to inform” then he should have done just that and waited for further instructions rather than reaching for anything. Even so, what cop thinks a bad guy is going to inform him that he has a gun before reaching for it? Sorry, either way it’s a bad shoot by a cop who’s strung WAY too tight to be on the street with a gun.

    • Honest CCW with illegal marijuana in the car? (And probably high at the time?)

      This may not be the poster child for Police State Brutality you’re looking for. We’ll see how it plays out, but smart money is betting on Idiot Gunowner of the Day.

      • So, again…MJ in the car is grounds for execution?

        I’m not saying it WAS an execution in this case (I don’t know the build-up to the shooting), but you keep sounding like the violation of ANY law, even minor ones, ok a police shooting.

        And, even if we concede MJ possession IS grounds for street execution by cop, did the cop KNOW there was MJ at the car at the time of the shooting? If not, then even by your own rules this fails the “Objective Reasonableness” legal test.

        The bottom line is that MJ is not a deadly weapon and in no rational way can it be argued that the presence of marijuana alone constitutes “abilty, opportunity and jeopardy” to inflict “imminent death or severe bodily injury.”

        It seems like the whole MJ bit is nothing more than weak justification for the cop’s action of shooting a driver during a traffic stop.

        This style of rationalization is very, very weak, illogical and overall bad for everybody.

        In other words, “He had MJ so he deserved it” is pure, unadulterated bullshit and I think you know it. After all…take it to the next step. What happens when someone starts saying, “Well, he ran a stop sign, so he had it coming!”

        • So, again, nobody said it was. I’ve already since expounded that point above. Check it out.

          Short version: If he possesses it, he was probably on it. Nevertheless, nobody said smoking weed deserves, warrants or justifies execution, being shot, or murdered, etc. I’m just saying that it’s stupid and smoking weed renders you less in command of your physical and mental faculties, leaving you vulnerable to dangers.

          Lots of stupid things can lead to death. This isn’t about justice. This is about realitu5. Should jaywalkers be put to death? No, but some of them do in fact die as a result of their stupid decision.

          If this guy was stoned and therefore clumsy in his interaction with the officer, while armed and discussing such, then miscommunication is more likely, as is fatal error. That’s just an objective root cause assessment, no matter how hard you want it to be a grand indictment of anyone’s character.

        • Maybe the fact that the driver was stoned led to possible misinterpreting instructions from the cop, and being a touch paranoid since he was a black man dealing with a cop while carrying and high. The fact that cops tend to go on double high alert when dealing with a black man didn’t help his cause either. The perfect storm.

      • The police had no knowledge of the MJ in the car.
        Your comment is irrelevant.
        Please don’t spread misinformation.

        • It goes to Mr. Castile’s frame of mind and how he acted. Especially if he was at all intoxicated.

          Same if he had been drinking.

      • Jonathan – I have not reached a firm opinion on this shooting as yet, not enough data. Per what is available on the video it certainly looks like the LEO over-reacted. We shall see.

        ON the other hand, it is no secret when people are recruited into the police forces that the job is potentially dangerous, even life-threatening. I’m pretty sure this is discussed repeatedly during their training and probation periods on the street. That being the case, and every police officer being a volunteer and free to leave the force at any time, I believe the rote commentary “officer was in fear for his life” does not justify immediate shots fired. LEOs are supposed to have more experience and better judgment in such incidents, having been trained for the eventuality and having daily experience with such situations, not to mention conversations with other LEOs and their experiences. If a cop is wound so tight that his immediate response to a man in a car reaching for his wallet is not, “Stop! show me your hands.” but rather to draw his weapon and fire four shots into the car then he really does not belong on the street or even in that job. He is in serious need of a psych eval and possibly a new career. JMHO.

    • Blue Purge? Funny, I didn’t see any shot officers in the video. Maybe we can ask Erik Scott about complying with officers… oh, wait.

    • Typical bootlicker… a man is dead and he only cares about the taxpayer funded career and pension of the killer pig.

      • The shoot looks really bad. The cop is a human being, and may well have made a terrible error. If he was actually standing there weeping, I’d make sure he has good care, to prevent anything else dreadful happening. It won’t make it better to have another awful story in the news.

        • Make sure the cop has good care? While he let the guy bleed out?

          “[Other officers] pulled [the officer who shot Castile] over to the side and they began to calm him down and tell him that it was okay and he would get through this.”

          Meanwhile, Castile was unconscious and bleeding to death in the car where he had been shot five times.

          There’s so much wrong with all of this. A man—a black man—should not lose his life for daring to exercise his Second Amendment rights. And while the killing of Castile is by far the most galling crime committed here, the way the police treated Reynolds is also inexcusable. The cops were only capable of showing humanity toward one of their own: the officer involved in the shooting. Such utter lack of empathy on the part of law enforcement—during and after the shooting—is a grave concern.

          http://reason.com/blog/2016/07/07/witness-cops-comforted-philando-castiles

  7. I personally have seen Cops panic when they are told that the person has a concealed weapon. A look of absolute horror is seen in their eyes and you know any second they may start shooting you. Its made me wonder if I should stop carrying a gun altogether because it seems I am far more likely to be murdered by Cop than by a criminal.

    • Nope. Even if you adopt an incredibly broad and vague definition of “murdered by a cop” you’re still much, much more likely to be murdered by a criminal.

    • I am (painfully) reminded of all the “COPs” episodes, TV programs and movies in which an officer approaches a stopped vehicle, spots a weapon and immediately yells as loud as he can, “GUN!” The response is always for every officer within earshot to draw their weapon and point it at the driver whether or not there was any threat. I have even seen this played out where the driver is outside the vehicle talking with the police when the gun is discovered and announced. The driver is them immediately taken to the ground, knee to the middle of his back, as though he is automatically a felon and cop killer, before any further investigation as to the legality of the firearm in his vehicle.

      This level of police terror of the presence of a firearm in the possession of a “civilian”, magnified and reinforced by Hollywood, plays up police paranoia and ultimately results in these sorts of over-reactions.

    • I had that same thought. Can see the headlines/tweets now: “Young Black Man would still be alive if he was not carrying gun.”

      They WILL try to exploit this, and they WILL lie about the circumstances.

      They also will probably try to use this as evidence for the “good guys with guns are more likely to get shot by the cops” canard.

    • “Never fight back” has been the advice given to us plebes for a long time.
      Meanwhile they (cops/alphabet agents/celebs and pols) are advised to fight with every tool at their disposal as though their lives depended on it.

      Our wives and daughters are told to piss themselves if attacked by a rapist. Female FBI/ATF/SS agents and cops are told to punch, claw, stab, choke and attempt to kill their attacker by any means possible.

  8. you get pulled over you have both hands out in plain sight with license, ccw in hand…and you ask if you can reach to get anything else…period

      • Rubbish.
        The time to fight is in the courtroom.
        The time to cooperate is pretty much anytime before that.

        Encounters with police go smoothly with mutual respect. He has a job to do, and I’ll happily help him do it. He needs to treat me with respect and never forget that I’m presumed innocent until proven guilty.

        • If a cop is ordering you to the ground, he is not treating you with respect. If he is cuffing you for “your safety”, he is not treating you with respect. If he is disarming you, he is not treating you with respect.

          Better 1000 cops die than one citizen be deprived of their rights in any manner.

        • Looks like the guy was treating this encounter with considerable respect. He wasn’t fighting at all, or being impolite. He even very politely told the officer that he is carrying, as is the best practice during a traffic stop.

          And?

          He got shot for all his troubles, because he was unable to follow the confused instructions in a split second while the officer was on the verge of panic.

        • Looks like the guy was treating this encounter with considerable respect. He wasn’t fighting at all, or being impolite. He even very politely told the officer that he is carrying, as is the best practice during a traffic stop.

          He got shot for all his troubles, because he was unable to follow the confused instructions in a split second while the officer was on the verge of panic.

          Oddly enough he got shot because he was black. Because his parents taught him to be careful and extra respectful around police (because he’s black, so, you know…) he did more than he was required to by law. Minnesota is not a “Must Inform” state. If he hadn’t told the cop he was carrying he’d still be alive. But he did because he didn’t want anything “unexpected” to happen in his interaction with the police. He went the extra mile to be cooperative and helpful and inform the cop.

          How tragic.

        • Like you have a remote chance of seeing anything approaching justice in a court against a COP? Please, what a joke.

        • int19h, no he got shot because he was reaching for something unseen when he told the cop he had a GUN.

          If he had stayed still instead of reaching when he passed on this information and waited for new instructions given the changed circumstances, he’d still be alive.

          And never just say “I have a gun.” The words you use matter.
          GUN is a trigger word and cops are trained to react to it. That why it’s called out by officers when one is spotted, to make all aware of it’s presence.

          Instead say you have a permit/license (using the local terms when possible) and are currently carrying (all with hands still and visible). Say it calmly and politely, not in a harsh or threatening tone.

        • He was reaching back because the officer directed him to produce the ID. It was very unfortunate timing for him to decide to mention the gun at that point, yes. But…

          Policemen are supposed to be trained professionals. A random guy on the street is not. Thus, the onus is really more on the officer to ensure that the interaction goes smoothly, by providing the necessary guidance, and anticipating mistakes that people make. If saying an ambiguous thing at the wrong moment (and note that it wasn’t even threatening!) during interaction with police can result in you being shot in less than a second after you open your mouth, I consider it an epic failure of either police training, or police operating procedures, or both.

          And I understand the whole minimizing risk for the officer angle, but the way it ends up working right now is that they minimize the risk for themselves by increasing the risk for people they interact with – which, in many (arguably, most) cases aren’t even criminals. I don’t think that is acceptable. Fundamentally, if we assume that police is there to serve the people, we are paying them to stick their neck out in risky situations so that we, the general public, don’t have to be in those situations, or to have a better chance to get through them. We are certainly not paying them to create new risky situations where the risk is almost entirely on us. If a routine traffic stop ends up with a fatal shooting of an innocent person, and if this keeps happening again and again, the system is broken, and doesn’t do what the public reasonably expects from it.

      • Aerindel says:
        July 7, 2016 at 09:47

        You sound like a natural born slave……

        .and I say….at least I’m not ventilate….friend

      • You know, just because you spend your nights and weekends running around in a cape and red leather cod piece, it doesn’t mean you actually are some kind of badass Spartan and the rest of us are just bootlicking punks.

        So the guy recognizes that a cop has a somewhat dangerous job and faces some uncertainty with potential for serious injury at each traffic stop? Given that, he takes minimal precautions to avoid potentially fatal misunderstandings and you call him a slave?

        I bet if he revealed that he immediately washes out a cut with warm water and soap, followed by a little OTC antibiotic ointment and a bandaid, you’d call him a wussy for that, too? Good grief.

        • Cops have a very safe job. Besides, I’m under no obligation to make life easier for the coproaches. They chose to be revenue agents for the state, so let them suffer the consequences.

          As a bootlicker, you’re going to be one of the people who happily hands over his guns to the state when disarmament comes, because a guy with a badge told you too. You’re not just a slave, you are an enthusiastic supporter of your fellow citizen’s enslavement.

          Cops are the enemy. Their job is to act as muscle for the illegitimate state, enforcing its unconstitutional laws. I cheer every time a police officer is killed in the line of duty, which isn’t nearly often enough.

    • Yes to avoid summary execution you must follow a set of unwritten rules codified exactly no where in law. If the police give contradictory instructions at any time, remember all that matters is they have to get home safe, so unfortunately you’re just going to have to die.

  9. I want to see the full video this has missing parts. It doesn’t look good from this for sure but again I want to see the full vid. If he messed up then he will pay for it just like in Tulsa

  10. part of the problem is that officers are trained too shoot first if they see a gun, very seldom are cops and robbers going to play high noon,
    most officers are so scared they can not think clearly, not of the job but the PC consequences of doing their job
    Bad Shoot most definitely, shot by scared cops that see a threat in every stop and have an itchy trigger finger who don’t remember that the supposed bad guy might have a permit and actually be a good guy

  11. A busted tail light is not worthy of an execution. I’ve had many tail-lights out and not noticed until I was backing the car up against a wall where I could see the the reflections. When I notice, I proceed to a vendor who stocks those tail-lights and correct the issue in the parking lot (I carry tools in the car).

    At least cops in my area are not so picky to pull people over on such a minor issue. At least 2 of 3 lights working are considered acceptable. At worst it would be worth an advisory to get the issue fixed.

    • “A busted tail light is not worthy of an execution.”

      Insanely idiotic, at the Billy Madison level.

    • Many times the cop will use a burned out light or “It didn’t look like you had your seat belt on.” as “probable cause” to make a stop if they think there is something suspicious that they want to investigate. I have heard this directly from more than one officer I knew. “If I want to talk with you all I have to do is follow you for one quarter mile and I can find reasonable probable cause to make a stop.”

      Black man, barely adequate probable cause to make a stop, smells marijuana as soon as the window rolls down, driver sates he has a gun, BANG! I still think it was a little too soon to go to deadly force. Whether or not this is ruled a good shoot this officer needs some serious head shrinking before he is allowed in public with a weapon.

      If Cop ran the plates and the vehicle came back stolen or was registered to a friend of the driver (or female passenger) who had outstanding felony warrants or a long rap sheet of violent offenses, I could see some extra caution on the part of the responding officer, but this does not seem to be the case here, at all.

      • Yep, the detective who talked on the second half of the “Don’t talk to cops” video the law professor did confirmed this. He said that all he had to do was follow any car he wanted to pull over and he could always come up with some justification for pulling them over.

        • That is a very good video. I think it should be shown in 7th grade civics class. There is all this horseshit put out there about Officer Friendly and the police are your friends. I call horseshit on all that. A cops sole job is to arrest and ticket lawbreakers. If you are a lawbreaker, they are not your friend. If you are not a lawbreaker the only interest they have in you is to see if you are a lawbrealer, therefore they are still not your friend.

      • “Black man, barely adequate probable cause to make a stop, smells marijuana as soon as the window rolls down, driver sates he has a gun, BANG!”

        You just made up that narrative. You left out everything of the interactions between these people, because yiu don’t know what happened.

        BANG? Seriously? Just premeditated murder, huh? You know exactly NOTHING of what the officer saw or heard and why he fired. Nothing. Yet, you spit up that absurd murder scenario? That’s asinine in the extreme.

        If that were the officer’s wicked desire, then why not kill the woman, too, and destroy the phone? Better yet, why do it all in broad daylight with a seated suspect during a routine traffic stop? Why not wait until you had a clearly resisting suspect like in Louisiana?

        Geez, you people do love to take your anti-government chit chat to hysterical extremes. That’s why the antis have traction with so-called fence sitters.

        By the way, people get stopped for tail lights out every day. I’ve been stopped for that four times in my life. Never got shot, but did get three warnings and one ticket (later dismisssd upon proof of having replaced the bulb).

      • Cliff, your narrative doesn’t follow the info we have so far.

        You omitted that he was reaching behind his back AS he announced he had a gun.

    • The stop should have gone “Sir, you have a tail light out. You need to get that fixed. Have a nice day and be safe.” Then the government employee walks back to his car and drives away. No need to ask for paperwork at all.

      • On the flip side:

        “License and registration please.”

        “I have a gun and a CCW permit.”

        “Keep your hands on the wheel while I open the door for you, step out of the car, I’ll get your ID.”

        The cop would likely still need to check ID considering it’s required to legally operate a motor vehicle.

  12. -we don’t know if he had a permit to carry but if he did, he would have been taught to NOT do what he did

    -the cop was not white so stop the race pimping, she called him Chinese but he was probably Hmong

    -I have friends on the SPD (this was in SP but might be a suburban cop) and I’ve done ridealongs in that department. SPD cops are among the most professional and well disciplined cops I’ve known.

    • “the cop was not white so stop the race pimping”
      … Because only white people are capable of racism, right?

      Get a clue. God only knows if this would have gone down differently if the driver was a different race. But to suggest that being Hmong removes that possibility is naive.

  13. Bold prediction of the day; Officer Triggerhappy gets an extra month of paid vacation, family sues, gets $2million. Because the real fault here lies with the taxpayers for insisting that someone else takes responsibility for their safety and hiring so many police. Not to mention passing thousands of laws for them to enforce, micromanaging every trivial detail of our lives that they can think of.

  14. This ‘video’ shows NOTHING. everything from her perspective. Really TTAG? Yes, this is an important story, but nothing this woman says can be verified. Stop contributing to the madness and be the reasoned voice in the discussion. Don’t post a video or a link to a video that could turn out to be more propaganda. It’s ONE side of the story. Tell us about it. Wait. find out the other side of the story. THEN report.

  15. Been driving for 35 years. I have a lead foot. Been pulled over a lot. No. A whole lot. It’s the same routine every time. You pull over and he sits back there running your plate. This takes a long time. If you don’t already have your DL, registration and insurance card out before he gets to your vehicle, why not?
    I’m as antiauthoritarian as the next guy but I find that if I am not a dick with the officer, he just tickets me and we’re on our way.

    • Dude, just how much lead have you squared away? I drive like a bat out of hell and may very well be one of the few living Georgians to have made it from Calhoun down 75 to Atlanta in only 25 minutes (on the bike at least) but I’ve only been pulled over one time since moving here from Missouri over 2 1/2 years ago. (Yes I was carrying. No the deputy didn’t ask. Yes I kept my hands visible. Yes I was speeding. Yes I got a warning.)

      Every time I cross the river into Misery at Cairo I have to force myself to slow the hell down to something under 90. It’s a long drive across the state to Springfield and there are many cops with ticket quotas to fill compared to GA. Luckily, I’ve only been pulled over once in MO while under arms. Although MO doesn’t have a duty to inform I did so anyways. When I told him I had an LCP in my right rear pocket he said “fair enough. Just keep it there and I’ll keep mine in its holster.” (Got a warning there. 66/55 would hardly have been worth it.)

      I’m not into the white guilt game or anything, but I do have a suspicious feeling that this was a case of a wound up cop jumping to conclusions (black man with gun, therefore draw and shoot). Bad juju all the way round.

      Tom

      • Maybe my old age is showing. No disrespect, but what’s your hurry? Vehicles kill too. We need right thinking 2nd amendment supporters alive and kicking.

        • None taken, and I admit I may have been exaggerating a bit. I don’t really drive all that fast, otherwise I WOULD have gotten more speeding tickets than I actually have (only 2 on the motorcycle since 2011, and none in a car since….2005 maybe?). But with all due respect, if habitual speeding is my worst vice in this day and age, then I’m doing just peachy (Peach State, get it? I knew you would 🙂 ) And besides it really IS a freakin’ race out there on the interstate. I’ve had cagers chase me at or above the ton on my motorcycle for seemingly no other reason than, well, they like to follow motorcyclists at close range. No matter what speed I’m going they all want to get in close for a look. I personally don’t OC, but maybe it might not be such a bad idea if it makes crazy drivers keep their distance a bit.

          Tom

    • I’ve never seen so many state patrol as in Georgia and Florida. Every 2 or 3 miles on the interstate for 400 miles in GA and 500 in FL. Drive through Iowa you probably won’t see more than one or two the whole way across. (Although 235 through Des Moines is one big speed trap, but that’s DMPD.)

    • >> If you don’t already have your DL, registration and insurance card out before he gets to your vehicle, why not?

      Because you don’t know if they will want them or not?

      Because rummaging in your glove box while the cop is walking to your car can get you shot just as fast?

  16. Another case of black lives matter DARING a cop to shoot them.
    Oh, I was just reaching for my wallet, sir, and BTW… I just… HAPPEN TO HAVE A GUN!!!
    A cop doesn’t have to wait to look down the barrel to defend himself.

    • So he went through the entire process of getting a carry permit to get a gun just to later pull his weapon on a police officer? You are a sorry individual if so. This man had a job with the local school system. The fact that he is working around kids means that he had to submit to a background check as well as drug test.

      • Need to wonder if Mr. Wolf here is not anti plant trying to further their idea that we’re all racist hicks.

        This guy looks more clean than not (not that it matters – he was stopped for a damn tail light), and it really does not look good for the cops in this incident.

        • The cops are very nervous and scared, and with good reason. And all people, if not especially black men, need to know they have to be scrupulously deferent when stopped by police. The new obama junta Justice Department and media have enabled and encouraged disrespect and even taunting of the police, putting the police in a position of vulnerability while doing their job, which is bound to lead to more tragedies. We don’t have a video record of how this transpired. If this guy says he has a gun, he needs to follow the cop’s every command until he’s disarmed at which point he can safely reach into his pocket. If he says, “I have a gun” and then immediately reaches into his pocket — Good Shoot.
          This is just common sense and we need to proceed under the assumption that black people have common sense, too.
          I give it 50-50 these two are muslim converts and he’s now a martyr.

        • We have to stop scapegoating the police because we’ve let the inmates run the asylum.

      • It’s unclear that the officer knew the guy had a permit.

        I don’t know if the permit is tied to the DL in Minnesota as it varies by state.
        And in many states the DL has to be run separately before CCW status is flagged.
        Just running the tag won’t give the officer that info.

        We don’t even know who the car was registered to.

    • Hey, genius – dude apparently had a legal CCW, and WAS reaching for his wallet.

      Thanks for making us all look like a bunch of bigots. This very much looks like a bad shoot, and black or white, anyone who CCWs should take notice…

    • Any Cop should know, as a matter of professional education, that a person sitting in a car who does not already have a weapon at the ready when you arrive at their door is at a serious tactical disadvantage. They are in a restricted area making the draw clumsy (try it sometime, unloaded, please) and the field of fire very limited. The officer outside on a clear, sunny day, has excellent visibility into the vehicle, multiple options to retreat, maneuver, take cover should the need arise, and knows for a fact that all 17 -19 9mm rounds from his pistol will penetrate the sheet metal of the door and the side window or windshield with no trouble at all. And he has maybe two additional magazines he can dump if he feels the need. Add to this that he was probably wearing a vest. All of the odds favored the officer, even if the driver was not a law-abiding, permission slip carrying gun owner who announced this fact in advance.

      Unless the officer sees the pistol out and pointed in his direction when he approaches the driver side of the vehicle (why many Highway Patrol officers now approach from the passenger side), Standing right next to the window, stuck to the “X”, drawing and firing into the car when no weapon is visible, is NOT the proper response. If he were not a LEO, if this were a simple driver to driver altercation or a road-rage incident, the shooter would be in jail immediately and charged with murder or at least manslaughter.

      Regardless of what led up to the shots fired, this does not seem like an appropriate response to the situation. Once again, IMO.

    • The cop was not defending himself. A citizen making a movement is not a threat. The government employee should not have even touched his weapon. Government employees do not have rights, they have delegated powers. We the citizens can dictate how they do their job. No cop should fire their weapon with out a clear identifiable threat. This whole “He reached for his waistband” load of crap should be landing government employees in prison for the rest of their lives.

  17. I generally don’t like to be the conspiracy type of guy but two in two days seems too fishy. Why? Well it seems like it could be a good way to distract people, divide them even more, create another Fergusson with protesters paid by some lefties billionaires that want to spread chaos, making people stop talking about an another criminal (such Hillary Clinton), and blame Trump, Republicans and the NRA for their way to generate gun violence and racism.

    So, the previous shoot didn’t really look like a bad shot because of the profile of the suspect, his history and reaction to resist the police. So media needed to find another one… And unfortunately this one, from the first info (but we only have one side so far, so we have to stay prudent about our conclusion, but let’s assume it), looks like a bad shot. Pure coincidence? Nope!

    Since a majority of cops are whites, and since a majority of people shot by the police are either whites or blacks (pretty much fifty, fifty), and since there’s at least one police shot per day, it doesn’t take long to find another white cops shooting a black day.

    And unfortunately, since cops are not perfect, it could always be a small percentage of unjustified shooting. And once again, if this is some politics are going for, it’s just a matter of time before they will find one.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m all against police brutality. But it’s often easier to focus on the 1% of wrong instead of the 99% of good.

    The question is: when will they report the next bad shooting of a white cops on a white guy? Because statistically, from the FBI numbers, it does happen pretty much just as often…

    My 2 cents

  18. Sad. Of course we can’t know all the circumstances, but this certainly doesn’t look good for the officer involved. We all know the statistics regarding CCW permit holders committing crimes so I would venture to say that Mr. Castile was not involved in criminal activity, but who really knows? Obviously he was upstanding enough to get a CCW and pass a background to purchase a handgun. I hope this doesn’t discourage other black people from getting into guns and CC.

  19. I really wish I could overhear some of these comments that you make, dehumanizing black men in person. But I know that most of you are very strong and brave while protected by the safety of the internet.

    Bunch of cowards. Same reason why those police exicuted those men. Too fearful to perform their jobs effectively

  20. I think it’s fine time to heavily “regulate ” police at all levels. Like I said, the slippery slope is obviously here sooner rather than later…We should be fighting tyranny with Liberty ! I’m growing tired of the “Police-State “. And as a private citizen, I’d rather remain private and be not bothered ! We need to disarm law enforcement –only the people have a right to keep and bear arms..Not government agents….Defund police departments —that will put a damper in the local police departments buying up MRAPs, and M16a2’$ ! Their obviously not taking those to the middle school for show and tell! Remove and outlaw all profit motivated traffic stops, and special revenue generated for various townships, cities, etc…..Full Independent civilian review boards for all rank and file LEO’s !

  21. Two very questionable shoots in two days. Yes, the Louisiana guy was fighting back, but he was clearly subdued. Did not look good. The Minnesota one looks so bad, and if facts bear out what this remarkably composed lady was relating—in the heat of the moment—then it’s worse than it looks. That the woman held it together and the cop was totally freaking out speaks volumes about this situation. Whoever said she acted high is a fool and not worthy of consideration.
    I’ve been pulled over twice since i’ve had my carry permit (once a headlight issue, once after someone crashed into us), both times I immediately told the officer I had said permit and was carrying. Both times the officer acted like “meh, why are you telling me this?” very unconcerned. I am white. I respect and support the police and most of these incidents the BLM types get behind I would consider justified shootings. But these latest two are pretty hard to defend. The prevalence of cameras (and the media’s willingness to show these videos) shines a bright light on things that blacks have talked about for years. Both cases, without cameras there’s no way it becomes national news. There is a tension in this country like i have never seen. Maybe the late ’60s were this volatile and i was too young to notice. This president, or perhaps this presidency, has presided over the most divisive times this nation has seen perhaps since the Civil War. THAT is why we have the two most polarizing presidential candidates ever, while the majority sits in the middle and is forced to choose sides.
    It feels like things are about to explode. I’m glad I live way back in the woods.

  22. Meh. I got nothing.

    When a cop has a gun on you, you do what you’re told and you don’t make any sudden moves. You don’t reach for your gun. You sit there and calmly do what you’re told.

    It’s actually very easy NOT to get shot.

    • Ok… that’s fair. Except it’s not. To idiots, or deaf people, or people on drugs. Then… those people just die.

    • There is too little data, most of it from the female passenger. If it went as reported the cop was holstered up until the driver said, “I have a CCW.” and reached for his wallet to produce it. This was probably foolish, but a good guy with a gun and under stress of a traffic stop may mistakenly think producing his CCW immediately is a good idea, especially if he is black.

      It was at this time, allegedly, that the cop pulled his weapon and fired four quick shots into the vehicle, killing Mr. Castile. And with COMPLETE disregard for the safety of the passenger in the vehicle. If that is in fact the timeline and sequence of events, the cop did a bad shoot and needs to pay the price. If there is evidence that this is not the correct sequence of events the evidence needs to be presented publicly at the earliest possible moment.

      • The local news said the cop told him to stop reaching for his back pocket several times and then saw the gun. The cop was on video saying he told the man to stop reaching for it.

        Whether a gun or a wallet, you don’t go reaching for something when the cop tells you to stop. Like I said, all he had to do was DO NOTHING. Or do what he was told.

        The cops always tell you to keep your hands where they can see them. They don’t know what you’re reaching for.

        • Actually it sounds like the officer gave conflicting commands. First he asked for driver’s license. As the guy was reaching for it he (unfortunately) chose to tell the cop he was also carrying a firearm. That’s when the cop changed his order but the guy didn’t react fast enough and got shot several times. You make it sound like a long time elapsed and the cop asked over and over and the guy ignored him.

          The cop wasn’t wearing a body cam, we’ll have to wait for the dash cam (if they release it).

    • “It’s actually very easy NOT to get shot.”

      Really, Adub?

      Here’s a scenario: Two cops have their guns trained on *you*.

      Cop #1 screams: “Freeze!”

      Cop #2 screams: “Get down on the ground, NOW!”

      Tell me what you do, Adub, to avoid getting shot in this scenario…

  23. Kinda looks like an act of incompetence and cowardice to me. It looks like he made sure the man died rather than admitting his mistake and rendering first aid or allowing the girlfriend to.

    • Four shots, probably 9mm, maybe .40 cal, through the left arm and into the torso & abdomen, highly unlikely even JW Taylor could save this guy with immediate care, intravenous transfusion of the correct blood type, and a helicopter standing by for a very short flight to a certified trauma center.

      Odds of surviving a single shot to the center of mass, so-so. Odds of surviving 4 shots, point blank, not so good. Possibly miraculous.

      (I was an Army medic. Not up to JW Taylor’s standards, i was a long time ago, but the basics still apply, Some people cannot be saved, no matter how hard you try, or pray.)

      • I understand this, however, what kind of person can just stand there and watch somebody die from accident that they committed and do nothing and allow nothing to be done to try to help the person – even if just comforting them?

        • A robot. A very tightly wound up robot, with a gun. Draw your own conclusions.

          Tom

  24. Guys this is red meat – its a misdirection. Who here really believes that went viral without any media assistance right on the heels of Hillary’s SECOND scandal hearing in a week?

    • And didn’t Lynch announce in a presser that the Hillary investigation is “over?”

      Where’s the big news on THAT?

    • Yeah, the Clinton campaign sent orders down to their minions in the police departments “Yall, shoot some darkies to take the heat off my lies.”

      • No, but far more realistic is a MSM that is in the bag for HRC (and Progressives in general) searched for “a story” that could be used as misdirection.

        It’s not that hard to believe, and one does not have to go as far into “conspiracy theory” territory as you imply. Usable stories happen all the time; all they have to do is “run with them.”

        MSM’s job, as they probably see it anyway, is to deflect from HRC and get her off the front page. This story has done that.

      • The fact that this shooting happened is a coincidence.
        The fact that it went viral is absolutely NOT a coincidence.

        Hillary doesn’t control the media – but she doesn’t have to. They know their job is to bury stories damaging to fellow “progressives” and keep stories damaging to conservatives or free-thinkers circulating endlessly for weeks.

  25. I’ll check Minnesota’s criminal code to be positive, but apparently the penalty for driving with pot in a car with a broken taillight while black is instant death.

    Anyway, the cop thought so.

    • this cop likely so screwed, as it should be. if he is a murderer, put him jail, get a wrongful death judgement, and dont let him own a gun the rest of his life if it is proved he is dangerous with a gun in hand. This is crazy.

      • I’ve earned my “Cop-sucker” and “Boot-licker” merit badges several times over, but this seems to clearly be a bad shoot, likely caused by bad training and extremely poor self-discipline.

        If you are that afraid while approaching a car that impairs your judgement, don’t approach the car.

        Like all things society (or in this case his police academy training) bears 100% of the blame, AND the individual bears 100% of the blame. Saying the one is more responsible does not negate that the other is also responsible.

  26. Whenever I have been pulled over I have always let the officer know that I have a carry permit and that I have a SIDEARM on my right hip. The word GUN has never, and will never, escape my lips when involved in a law enforcement encounter. There are several reasons for this. The word GUN has some seriously negative connotations in these situations. It also may be that the officer will consciously or subconsciously recognize the term as either military, LEO or at the very least educated in firearms or in general. This has served me extremely well in the few instances I have been involved in. I carry my DL and CL in the wallet in my right front pocket. I have always informed the officer of the sidearm and its location first, then asked them if they were comfortable with me retrieving my wallet after giving them it’s location. I am respectful and calm and they have invariably remained the same.

    • This, times 1000! I admit that I have not thought of it this way, and even though I never served in the military, most everyone else in the family did and “sidearm” is what I was taught to refer to a gun carried on the person. Given that many if not most cops, especially the younger ones, are SO conditioned to react precipitously when the word “gun” is uttered, it makes good sense to do whatever is possible to defuse a potentially bad situation.

      Tom

  27. Publius and SteveX: Both, GOOD advice. Never thought of that. Was just pulled over, have CHP, kept both hands at 10:00 and 2:00 on wheel. No problems BUT, next time I’ll do what you do.
    Thanks for the advice.

    • They almost never do CPR or remedial trauma care after they shoot somebody – that always seemed odd to me.

      OK, the threat was disabled at the moment you shot him 6 times and he collapsed, but who wins by you standing around the body and watching him bleed to death for 20 minutes while you wait for EMS? Seriously, do they not know that bullets almost never kill instantly?

      Handgun wounds are survivable upwards of 90% of the time, JUST STOP THE $#%&ING BLEEDING!

      • They did check her purse, after she got out and was cuffed (watch the video and you can hear them say they have to check it).

        The ambulance arrives at the 2 minute mark as the female is being cuffed. Again, you can hear that in the video.

      • Prior to her being secured, the scene is not secure.

        As for rendering aid, most cops are not trained for first aid and there are liabilities for doing something you aren’t trained to do. So department policy often precludes officers doing anything other than securing the scene and waiting for EMS.

  28. It appears that Americans are often over policed.
    How about we minimize the permissible reasons police can conduct a stop of a citizen?
    1. While driving, only extreme reckless driving allows a stop. All other infractions would be video based tickets sent to the driver like speed cameras.
    2. Eliminate sobriety check points. They almost never catch anyone and only serve to try to circumvent people’s 4th amendment right by intimidation.
    3. Any infringement of a citizen’s constitutional rights results in a $1000 fine for the COP. Five such infringements results in being barred from any LE or security type job for life.
    4. Terry stops become illegal. An LE should only be able to put their hands on a citizen in the event of an arrest for which there must be probable cause. A possible alternate could be detention of a witness. However, in that circumstance, any applied force must be the minimum necessary.

    • It’s not uncommon at all for “a busted tail light” to be a pretense for a stop when something more serious is suspected, or when a criminal investigation is being conducted. It’s highly likely that these two were suspects in something that we may not learn about for months or years, and whether he was pulling a gun or not, the cop had good reason to expect him to when he had a lot to loose — it happens all the time. The Left and obama still cry crocodile tears over the thug Mike Brown, who started the Ferguson uprising by committing a strong-arm robbery and trying to grab a cop’s gun.

      • This is a RADICALLY different scenario.

        This guy was a registered CCW Permit holder (passed a background check), worked with kids at his day job (passed a background check and a drug test), and based on everything we’ve seen so far he was not only 100% compliant, he was damn near a model citizen.

        Please educate yourself.

      • Such preventative crime approaches are leading us down the road to police state USA. Give up your freedom so the state can stop crime, maybe, occasionally . Or at least we can keep all of the undesirables in their place and bully the locals. Shouldn’t you be over on police one sucking up to that crowd?

  29. Wow some dumb comments on here are dumb but I’m impressed by the people questioning the police here. I worked with my towns PD in highschool as an explorer and a bit beyond that as well so I support cops, know cops, etc. I can’t speak on the Baton Rouge incident but it doesn’t look good when the State immediately turns the investigation over to the Feds. I won’t be some bootlicker when a cop commits murder. As a side note: it seams like the 4th amendment absolutely no longer applies in your vehicle nor does several other rights. Honestly anywhere but a motorvehicle it seams I have more rights, from bogus drug sniffing dogs that sit for drugs or treats depending on if the cop wants to harass you or not and whether the dog actually finds something or not.

  30. There’s a hard and fast rule that all Americans can apply to any situation — whatever obama thinks, is wrong.

  31. Make no mistake, I’m 99 percent sure this cop will get manslaughter at a minimum, for choosing to serve his country and community in the most hazardous job there is.

    • You made the mistake in your statement. If he’s convicted, it will not be because of his choice to become a police officer. If will be because of his choice to shoot and kill a man who (based on the information now) was not guilty of anything more than driving with a busted taillight.

    • “most hazardous job there is”

      AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      Not even close. Not even the top 10.

      • ^^^THIS.
        Cops have a “dangerous job” just like America has an “epidemic of gun violence”. Statistics say that’s complete bullshit.

        More dangerous than a hair stylist? Sure.
        Dangerous in general? Outside of the really bad parts of major cities – absolutely not.

        What most cops do have is a culture of fear. This has helped police fatalities to decline year after year, though it has also helped officer involved shootings to (subjectively, I don’t have data) increase.

    • So are you suggesting that the veterans nationwide can simply start shooting people for nebulous reasons and they should get away with because they decided to make a dangerous career choice at some point in the past?

      No one puts a gun to your head and makes you enlist in the military or join a police force and if you’re scared for your life all the time as a cop you have an option those in the military don’t have: quit.

    • Ha ha ha ha. The only one this coward is serving is himself. I hope he gets jail time and is put in general population. I’m sure they will find him quite attractive given how whiny he was after greasing an innocent citizen.

  32. Me and a Pasco County Deputy about a month ago..
    Me – Morning deputy (as I hand him my little folder with the reg and Insurance card with my license. All of these items were retrieved from the visor with no “fumbling around” or ‘looking suspicious’. It’s always right there.
    Him – Thanks.
    Me – Hey Dep I just want you to know that I have a weapon right there in my laptop bag beside me.
    Him – That’s cool (as he sees my hands on the steering wheel where they’ve been since we started.)
    Me – I’ll be glad to step out if it makes you more comfortable.
    Him – No. As a matter of fact I just want you to actually start making a full stop at this light in the morning. You cut it a little close all the time. I’ll let you get out of here. Have a nice day.

    No bullet wounds at all. Not even a ticket. Simple. Have some common sense and don’t be a dick.

    • The cop harassed you for a garbage reason, but he was so nice about it. How sweet. I’m sure you felt all nice and fuzzy inside knowing the cop could have stolen a couple hundred bucks but chose not to.

      • No he actually didn’t harass me about anything. I treat the red light at that intersection like a yield after slowing down a lot instead of a right turn on red nearly every day. I think he just got tired of seeing me do it every morning. You’re talking completely out of your ass.

        • That is literally a garbage reason: a garbage law created solely for the purpose of revenue extraction.

        • More Dead Soldiers – Are you punking people with this stuff or are you really deranged? In either case, have a good one.

        • The irony of calling others deranged when your “common sense” story is to literally submit like a good little cuck to the authority figure.

    • >> All of these items were retrieved from the visor with no “fumbling around” or ‘looking suspicious’.

      You’re not the judge of that – the cop is.

      • I have to disagree. They want the same crap every time. Everywhere. License, reg, POI. Every time. They never want to how you’re doing, what your lunch plans are, nothing but those 3. They are right there in front of me if I’m in the car. They are in my hand long before we’ve even stopped. It takes 1 second at best. It takes longer to turn on your flashers. It’s just not a big deal.

        • You miss my point. It doesn’t matter that you believe that your actions are not “suspicious”. The only thing that matters is whether the cop believes that or not. If they shoot you, chances are good that they’ll be able to convince the jury that their hunch was sufficiently justified to make it reasonable.

    • Pasco County, FL? Florida is not a “Must Inform” state. Why did you even bring it up? Especially since you weren’t even wearing it.

      • Well this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked that. I don’t have a great answer I guess. I do know that in 37 years of driving I’ve never had a moving violation (an expired tag and a seat belt ticket in Arkansas that is a whole weird story unto itself. The law was front seat required only and I was a passenger in the back seat and he knew it. While he had me in his car a guy pulled in behind us, jumped out and ran up to the car. The trooper pushed onto my lap essentially, didn’t draw but twisted his Mark III around in the holster till it was pointing out the window at the dude, and was screaming at him to get back. Scared the holy hell out of me.) and I’d like to think it’s because I’m courteous, not high or drunk, and try to be friendly just like I am with neighbors, the clerk at the grocery, or the cable guy. I put my keys on the roof. I got asked why once. I said I didn’t want him to think I was going to take off and make them chase me. He looked at my 122 HP Suziki Aerio and had a good chuckle. I was on my way in 3 minutes.

    • Most of the time, you’re right.
      But having lived in “the bad part of town” I can tell you its different if you’re black or dressed like an urban miscreant.

      The sad, simple reality is that young black men in urban areas commit a disproportionate amount of the crime, and they are often targeted with a disproportionate amount of suspicion.

      • I don’t doubt any of that for a second. I also don’t know what to do about it. I expect that bad attitude begets bad attitude begets bad actions and it’s a cycle that I don’t know how cops or citizens break. I do know that disarming cops or citizens won’t do a damn thing to help. Cops get shot by people who want to shoot them and citizens (armed and unarmed) who do and don’t do anything to warrant it get shot by cops. I’m not one of the former and don’t want to become one of the latter. I learned a long time ago that when the rubber hits the road, the other guy isn’t a cop, criminal, an enemy soldier, or a terrorist. He’s a man with a gun. Act accordingly.

  33. I’ll adopt my usual stance and wait for more information to come out on this. If it’s a good shoot, so be it. If not, the cop should pay dearly for it.

    This is one of those things where it’s all about the individuals involved not the police or CCW permit holders in general.

    I had a cop pull me over to let me know that the fuel port on my new car was open (one of those push a button to release types and I didn’t get it reset all the way). That was nice of the guy.

    On the other hand I was also pulled over just West of Columbus Ohio by a State Trooper that had been sitting in the median as part of a speed trap. He followed me for three miles and then pulled me over. Everything went very smoothly other than my rather large dog wanting to get across my lap to go after the guy. He ran my information came back, gave me back my license, registration, insurance card and whatnot and then asked “Do you know why I pulled you over?” I replied that I did not. He proceeded to tell me that the tailpipe on my ’03 WRX was louder than stock and that such was illegal in Ohio. He didn’t issue me a ticket and he let me go.

    Now that was a fucking bullshit stop. He didn’t pull be over for a tailpipe violation at all since what he told me in terms of the law was not true. Yes, that pipe was larger than normal but the muffler on it was stock so the vehicle did not emit “excessive or unusual noise”. Was that pipe illegal I’m sure I’d have been pulled over previously for it at some point during the four years I was living in Ohio prior to this stop. That guy pulled me over because he saw a single occupant in a sports car with New Mexico tags on I-70 which is a known drug running corridor. He wanted to shake my tree and see if anything fell out.

    It’s all about the individual cop.

    • I drove the same beat up car for several years in Mississippi.
      The tag lights never worked and I was never stopped for it, nor was it mentioned at the annual vehicle inspection.

      Moved to Alabama and within a week I was stopped one night for no tag light.

      Granted I was not in the best part of town, late at night, in a beat up old car, but I;d done similar back in MS for years.

      There’s lots of discretion and variance across the country.

      My son later got stopped several times for a tag light in an old pickup. Often a few days after the previous stop and the the bulb had been changed.
      (turned out it was a bad socket)

      AL, or at least in this area, makes a big deal over tag lights.
      MS appear to not care much.

  34. Just saw 7 minutes on Inside Edition. This looks like minimum manslaughter(I think 2nd degree murder)…

  35. I don’t understand why police get a pass on killing people just based on nebulous feelings that something might happen. Why can’t we hold police officers to the normal citizen self defense standard? Citizens don’t get to use lethal force just because during a conversation someone reaches for something out of sight. We should treat police like normal citizens and adjudicate these shootings in the regular court system. There are only around 500 police shootings a year nationwide. Our regular court systems can easily handle that.

    • The foundation of modern American policing is to instill fear and terror into the civilian population, this cannot work without a wide latitude to use lethal force.

  36. Eyewitness: “I just heard the officer say, ‘Put your hands up,’ and before he finished saying that there were four shots,” the woman said. This seems to agree with the girlfriend who stated, “As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times.”

    • But in the video, the cop says “why was he reaching!?” and she says he was getting his license. That is the opposite of putting your hands up, isn’t it?

      • No. Pay attention. The cop asked for his DL. As he was reaching for it he unwisely told the cop he was carrying a gun. The cop then yelled “put your hands up!” The driver began complying when he was shot.

        The third party eyewitness confirmed the cop then began shooting immediately.

        The gun was never pulled, pointed, or even shown to the officer. The cop is going to have a hard time explaining why he killed a person when he never even saw a gun. Especially when the driver was complying with the officer’s commands.

        Unless a cop removed the gun from the driver’s holster or pocket and staged the scene afterward, of course.

  37. The lesson here for permit holders is pretty clear: Never inform a cop that you’re carrying, because it might get you killed.

    • Some states require you to inform, by law. And if you’re a resident of that state, the cop will likely know whether you have a license to carry from your plates. So they are quite likely to inquire anyway, and if you neglected to tell them before they asked, you’re basically admitting to the crime when you answer.

      • You make valid points, of course. But from what we’ve heard so far, at least, it sounds like Philando Castile would be alive today if he had simply kept his mouth shut when his girlfriend was stopped for a busted tail light.

        • Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. We’ve seen plenty of cases where people (usually black) get shot when they try to reach for the wallet after being asked to produce an ID by a cop.

          However, even if it really is one of those cases, you have to consider the big picture. Notifying makes it more likely that the cop will behave aggressively towards you, which may result in you being hurt or even dead. Not notifying makes it more likely to be arrested, with all that entails (record etc). And, of course, being arrested also carries with it the risk of “resisting arrest” by, say, bleeding on the officer’s shirt too much.

          So yes, you have to balance the probabilities and figure out what works for you. I’m just saying that it’s not all that simple.

        • int19h, notifying does no such thing. It usually has the opposite effect.
          But that’s contingent on your behavior the whole time.

          Again the mistake was reaching while notifying.

          Had he kept his hands on the wheel, notified the cop that he had a permit/license and was carrying and waited, it would have gone very different.

          What happens next varies, but usually it’s a question about the location. If you need to go near it to get to ID, state that and ask how to proceed.

          Maybe be disarmed for the remainder of the stop. That’s officer discretion.
          Some will some won’t. This one probably would have.

        • Are you saying that the cop will treat an armed black male suspect in the same exact way as an unarmed black male suspect?

          Given all the evidence to date, I find it extremely hard to believe.

      • Some states require you to inform, by law.

        Minnesota is not one of them, so that doesn’t apply here.

        And if you’re a resident of that state, the cop will likely know whether you have a license to carry from your plates.

        Not necessarily. Michigan is “must inform.” However, when a cop runs your plates your CPL info does NOT come up. He has no way of knowing if you have a CPL or not.

        Pro tip: if you carry a gun, you should know the laws in the states you carry in. In this case the driver acted out of an abundance of caution, telling the cop he was armed even when he wasn’t required to by law, because he was black. He was trying to fully cooperate and be open and honest. Now he’s dead after bleeding out on the side of the road.

        • You should know the laws to avoid breaking them. Informing when not required to is not breaking the law in states which don’t make it mandatory. The guy did the right thing – and got murdered for his trouble. The only person who did anything wrong here was the cop, and that’s where all the blame and all the efforts to avoid such things in the future should go.

        • I don’t know as I’d say the guy did the “right thing,” but he didn’t do anything illegal and I agree, the blame goes to the cop.

        • The cop didn’t know he had a permit. Not clear that that was mentioned, and we know it wasn’t verified before the shots were fired.

          The info we have is he reached for something as he told the cop he had a gun, instead of telling the cop he had a permit and was carrying and waiting for further instructions.

          We don’t know where the gun was, or if the cop saw it as the guy reached.

    • But some states force civilians to inform, for “officer safety”.

      No doubt “civilian safety” was, is and never will be a consideration.

      • But some states force civilians to inform, for “officer safety”.

        However, Minnesota is not one of them.

        • It isn’t. But it’s a considerable burden for one to keep track of such laws in all states that they may be visiting – and laws change. It’s not unreasonable to stick to the lowest common denominator, which is to inform.

        • I respectfully disagree. You MUST keep up on the laws for the states in which you carry, otherwise you get arrested for carrying into a restaurant that serves alcohol or something because you were too lazy to check handgunlaw.us before you traveled to that state. I keep up on MI, OH, and IN. If I travel outside my tri-state area, I recheck the laws on the states I am traveling through and to prior to leaving to avoid going to jail for something I thought was legal.

          I never inform if I am in a state that does not require it. The last three times I was stopped by a cop out of state (Virginia once and Missouri twice) I did not inform because they don’t require it. Why introduce something in the mix that isn’t required?

        • The point here is politicians in many states have passed a law which demonstrably puts a civilian in danger by forcing him to reveal his armed status to a trigger-happy government thug.

          Naturally the best solution is to say absolutely nothing, but if a cop in an inform state concocts an excuse to search you (for example, by having a dog respond to a hand signal than claiming the dog found drugs), and he finds the CCW, you are screwed.

        • The law is not the problem. If you’re carrying openly, they know whether you tell them or not.

          The point, rather, is that in a country where the individual right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected, and where several million people routinely exercise it, the mere fact that one has a gun should not turn them into targets for LEOs; nor should the plain statement of fact (“I have a gun”) in a neutral, non-confrontational context be considered a threat.

      • MDS, informing is for your safety. It makes it known when you are not in a threatening position (ie. hand visible and still).

        Then the cop isn’t surprised by the sudden discovery later and he has no idea what your intentions are.

        • Right, because when the cop knows you have a gun, he’ll become extra jumpy “for my safety”.

          My intentions are absolutely none of the cop’s business. If he’s surprised, that is his problem.

    • Your 100 per cent wrong on this one. The cops already have you in the computer and they know before they even get out of their cruiser that you have a concealed carry license. Even knowing that the assholes will in most states immediately take your concealed carry license if you do not immediately inform them you have a license even though the pricks know it already.

      You may just be more safe these days not having a carry license as it is far, far more likely you will get blown away by a cop than by a criminal. But the problem is once you have the license how do you get a bunch of Moron Bureaucrats to take you out of the computer if you give up your license. Fact is it probably will stay in the computer for years until your license expires on its own and even then may not be taken out because of the usual bureaucratic incompetence. And the next time your stopped you just may be staring down the barrel of a multi-shot high capacity 9mm set to go off in your face at any moment. That should really give you pause for thought. And if you happen to be black or Hispanic or Muslim or even Italian looking kiss your ass goodbye immediately.

      • The Walter Scott murder? Yeah, that cop has been charged with murder and his trial is scheduled to begin in three months, October 2016. In May the cop, Slager, was also indicted on federal charges including violation of Scott’s civil rights and obstruction of justice.

        • FYI, ruester has been posting a bunch of hilarious videos purporting to vindicate Slager, but instead they cement his guilt.

  38. Duty to Inform- the gift that keeps on KILLING! Armed citizens that are black that is. If you are white, not a “city slicker” and live in a small town like Harrisburg, Illinois, you will NEVER be set up or killed by police under false pretense, because “the police are your friends” and “we’re all on the same side.” But you must know the secret Klan handshake.

    Harrisburg, Illinois is the hometown of state Rep. Brandon Phelps. It’s 30 miles from Kentucky, down in southern Illinois’ “Little Egypt.” Phelps and his sidekick NRA state lobbyist Todd Vandermyde put Duty to Inform with criminal penalties in their “NRA backed” concealed carry bill in 2013. The anti-gun police unions wanted it. DTI makes it easier for cops to kill armed citizens when their is a criminal charge. Plus DTI is only designed to be used against black people in Chicago, so the Good Old Boys don’t care.

    Hey, is the NRA/ILA starting a campaign to remove Duty to Inform from state carry laws? No, didn’t think so. They sold out Otis McDonald, what’s a few more dead black people if it keeps NRA in bed with the police unions. They’re both on the same side anyway- against the Constitution and for legalized police murder.

    • Most white people are too busy sucking up to cops and excusing their criminality to talk about white people being murdered by cops. It is disgraceful, really.

      • So the overwhelming white mainstream media is sucking up to the cops and excusing them?
        The media and the Obama administration has blood on their hands for the victims in Dallas.
        The rest of us white folks understand that you are more likely to choke on a ham sandwich than be “executed” or killed in any way by a police officer of any race.
        Truth bomb motherfucker.

        • Yes, because the media will ignore police murders unless there is a riot, and there is never a riot when a white person is killed. So what should be a story about police criminality becomes a race issue.

          “The rest of us white folks understand that you are more likely to choke on a ham sandwich than be “executed” or killed in any way by a police officer of any race.”

          Right, you don’t care unless it happens to someone you know. Typical bootlicker argument: it’s not the morality or the principles, it’s the numbers!

  39. The most disturbing incent is the Nazi State of Texas use of a Robot Bomb. It reminds us of the helicopter bomb that killed 5 children and burned down 60 peoples homes back in the 1985 in Philadelphia.

    Is the new norm of force against U.S. Citizens robot bombs and drones and what happens when the dumb ass cops attack the wrong address as they are typically noted for doing. They will not be bashing down doors that’s to hard, just send in a robot bomb and blow the persons house down with his children in it, if we made a mistake we will call it collateral damage and if we burn down the entire neighborhood we will call it urban renewal.

    With all the current corrupt Supreme Court rulings this month it is now legal to ban all weapons as well which will make it easier for Cops to know that there can be no retaliation. Rather than do the civilized thing and fire rouge Cops the “ruling elite” will tell you “we never prosecute our own henchmen they are the thugs that keep us in power.

    Nothing new, this is standard operating procedure in “The Peoples Republic of Korean” which is so closely followed in Texas and California, one a Nazi State and the other a Stalinist State. The two States could not be more different and more alike all at the same time. In other words pick your executioner it all results in the same thing in the end.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here