Philando Castile had a valid permit to carry a gun when he was shot and killed by a Minnesota cop — as his fiancée said as he drew his final breaths.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Saturday that the 32-year-old school cook had the state license, citing a source. The names of license holders are not public under state law.
“He told him that it was in his wallet, but he had a pistol on him because he’s licensed to carry,” Castile’s fiancée Diamond Reynolds calmly said in livestreamed video of the awful minutes after a St. Anthony cop shot him.
“The officer said don’t move. As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times.”
The cop, Jeronimo Yanez, can be seen in the video still pointing his gun as Castile as he dies.
“I told him not to reach for it!” the cop yells. “I told him to get his hand off it.”
Yanez’s attorney says race was not a factor in the Wednesday shooting and that he was reacting to Castile’s gun.
On Saturday it emerged that Castile was pulled over at least 52 times in the past 14 years for a variety of offenses and that more than half of them were later dismissed, according to The Associated Press.
In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the Department of Justice found police there disproportionately stopped black drivers as a way to maintain a source of revenue for the city.
