Posted on 07/10/2016 11:13:06 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There remains much that we don’t know about this — the tragic shooting of Mr. Castile, a school cafeteria worker, during a traffic stop in Minnesota — so the point here is not that a new narrative has been definitively established. But there are key elements of the story that are now credibly contradicted by emerging evidence.
Jenn Jacques at Bearing Arms has an excellent summary of them. Readers are familiar with the original narrative from Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who broadcast heartbreaking, live phone video of Castile after he was shot. The policeman stopped Castile, the driver, for a broken taillight, and supposedly shot Castile while he was reaching for his wallet — mistaking the movement for a reach for Castile’s gun, which we are told he advised the officer of, and had a carry permit for.
Perhaps worst of all, we were left to believe that the officer simply let Philando Castile bleed out in the car. The ambiguities of a given situation might prevent us from drawing hasty conclusions about the officer’s choice to shoot if he felt threatened. But once Castile was unable to move and was bleeding badly, there surely was no excuse for leaving him without the emergency care on scene in which all police officers are trained.
Now it looks like the most important features of the original narrative were incorrect. First of all, the police officer didn’t stop Castile because of a “busted taillight.” We know that from the police radio recording. At the time, the police were on the lookout for two suspects in the armed robbery of a store in the area, and Castile and Reynolds fit the description. The officer who made the stop reported that he was about to stop the vehicle for that reason.
The officer clearly states, “I’m going to stop a car. I’m going to check IDs. I have reason to pull it over.”
“The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery. The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just ‘cause of the wide set nose,” the officer on the recording confirms.
Approximately a minute and a half later, comes the first report that there was a shooting.
This fact changes the nature of the incident more than any other. An officer who thinks he may be stopping armed robbers will have a different mindset — about the threat level — from the one he’d have if he were just stopping someone for a broken taillight. He’d be more likely to suspect the presence of a gun, and suspect that it could be used against him. He’d be justified in firing into the car if he had to, even with other people in it, to save his own life.
Meanwhile, a photo posted by a bystander seems to show that the Castile car had two functioning taillights anyway. (Since the video streamed by Reynolds was in daylight, this image would have had to be from later in the day. That would fit, however, with the time it probably would have taken the tweeter, Rashad Turner, to get to the scene.)
(TWEET-AT-LINK)
A video posted on YouTube also appears to contradict the most damning feature of the incident: the officer’s implied disregard for Philando Castile’s condition after he was shot. The video — assuming it does depict the aftermath of this incident — shows a pair of officers giving Castile CPR on the road next to the car.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
At the less definitive level, there are a couple of points. Jenn Jacques posts an image of something on Castile’s thigh that could have been a gun — something the officer might have seen as he looked in the window. You can decide what you think about it. We don’t have a full timeline of the exchange to go by, in order to evaluate everything the officer thought was happening at the moment when Diamond Reynolds says Castile was reaching for his wallet.
View of Philando Castile’s lap from the Diamond Reynolds video. The still image appears to have been flipped horizontally.
Regarding the carry permit, one county (Ramsey) already denied issuing Castile a carry permit. Hennepin County next door, and the state of Minnesota, have declined to give out any information. Jacques quotes angry anti-gun pundits who excoriated the NRA for supposedly not supporting Castile as a carry-permit holder. But public officials haven’t allowed anyone to verify Castile’s status as a permit holder.
He may well have been one. But the tiebreaker for the police officer in the situation at hand wasn’t Castile’s carry permit; it was the possibility that the driver of the car was an armed robber.
We don’t know, among other things, how clearly the officer conveyed an urgent warning that Castile should not move his hands around in a way that could be misinterpreted. We can imagine what he said, but we don’t know for sure. We don’t know enough to draw firm conclusions — except that this was an awful tragedy. It demands, without question, a full and transparent investigation. But nothing can make up for the loss to Philando Castile’s family and friends.
Two more points. One, it looks like the foolish words of Minnesota’s governor (top link), Mark Dayton, may actually have been correct. Dayton, a Democrat, weighed in on Thursday with the opinion that Castile would still be alive if he’d been white. And indeed, if Castile had been white, he wouldn’t have fit the description of an armed robber on that afternoon in Falcon Heights. For that reason, and no other, he probably wouldn’t have been stopped at all.
The other point is that there’s a much bigger narrative falling apart: the narrative that America is doing our black citizens any good by thinking of them as part of a “47%” that we “take care of” with low expectations and welfare programs. For one thing, the evidence is staring us in the face that millions of black Americans don’t live by excuses, hand-outs, and the special privilege of not being responsible for their actions. They don’t accept life at the lowest common denominator. They know the “secrets” of a good life, like not nursing resentments but cultivating character, which is something we all have to do.
If the people of character — whatever their race or ethnicity — need to adjust what they’re doing, it’s not in the direction of simply giving one race or economic group a special veto over our common policing arrangements. Instead, it’s in the direction of shedding our bad mindset about negative incentives like the welfare state, or public-school teaching standards that encourage people from every background to nurse grievances and feel angry and confused about their cultural history. Too much of what our government does is now dedicated — quite literally — to fostering a sense of inequality and resentment in the people.
Race is an ugly dividing line, and race-mongering is real. The political left excels in it, and has been making a living off of it for more than half a century. Consider this: if Diamond Reynolds’ narrative about the shooting of Philando Castile should ultimately fall apart, it will be something that could easily happen with the narrative of a white person too. The difference in public impact won’t be because of more acute observation, or a greater concern for truth, among white witnesses. It’s not like white girlfriends are more reliable in that regard. The difference will be that if this incident had involved white people, the odds are you would never have even heard about it.
His statement no matter what the situation was disgusting.
All he was doing was pandering to blacks,PERIOD
Is any of this being picked up by the mainstream media?
That logic isn’t faulty. Take the “ifs” out of it. The robber was black, and the guy in the car was black. 1+1=2.
At this point you have no proof that he “apparently did nothing wrong” anymore than there is proof he did anything. Why don’t people wait before having such positive opinions until evidence is forthcoming. Seems that attitude has led to the rioting.
How do you rein in subnormal IQ morons? That is the average mentality of TWITS and Facebook types.
Their store of useful education and knowledge is essentially nil, yet they absolutely believe that their reasoning contribution is as important as that of people who actually know what they're talking about.
Remember, functional illiterates are elected to Congress and serve for decades. What does that say about their electorate?
THAT'S where serious legislation should be addressed first and foremost. Until that happens, things can only get worse.
What is so terrible about strict standards of qualifications to run for high federal and state offices?
A missing or imbecile head of household can only produce a criminal family.
A "not all there" elected to Congress can destroy hundreds of millions of families nationwide.
“Why have blacks devolved into a stoneage response to public social civilized interaction? That they have is indisputable”.
I recall saying to my wife when TUTU won the NOBEL PRIZE—”There goes South Africa”.....Took longer than I thought, but even with a ‘head start’ from 100s of years of ‘White Occupation’ ( Laff there) it’s heading back to the stoneage....
I don't think that is true. Below is a fairly recent FBI summary. It breaks out the murder offenses by race of the offender.
Murder Offenders by Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, 2014
-- Compound that stupidity by redefining felonies into "misdemeanors," ... --
I believe that is happening. The officials want to show "success," so they engage in creative accounting. See too, unemployment statistics.
You are not alone. That cop was freaked out imo.
Yelling and scared to death was my assessment.
Yep.
“...I wondered why the steering wheel was on the right side of the car.”
It seemed to flop back and forth with her videos. It confused the heck out of me.
You should dig a little deeper.
I believe today that RACE crime related statistics are compiled like global warming "facts" are compiled. Computer models and random "informal" unofficial crime sources, mostly academic, never verifiable.
Try to get an answer from the FBI as to the source of their race related crime data, the reliability and consistency of all the various sources and good luck to you.
You said race was forbidden from the reports, that was the only contention I rebutted.
Some more info on the girlfriend and the child in the backseat taking it all in. Very disturbing YouTube videos considering the drug use and language and the child in the backseat.
http://madworldnews.com/philando-castile-girlfriend-exposed/
There is a video on facebook by Coffey Anderson, Musician, showing what to do when you get stopped by police. It is informative and lot of common sense.
For men, says never sit on your wallet. Keep it out, in an area you can get to so when you get pulled over you get your DL and lay it on top of the dashboard. Hands on steering wheel with fingers spread out. Says keep your car registration where you can reach it as well.
Police get nervous when they can’t see your hands, you make sudden moves reaching for anything.
There is one problem with getting a wallet out (of a man's rear pocket). Often, the seatbelt has to be disconnected first. If you do that BEFORE the police make it to the car -- they can write you up for not having a seatbelt on.
If you wait (hoping to avoid a b.s. traffic ticket) then are left with having to reach to a pocket (usually, with most men, a rear pocket) for a wallet, where the driver's license is very traditionally carried.
Police officers (with good sense?) very often stay to the rear and left of the driver while that kind of reaching is occurring. I've seen the police quite often put their hand on their own weapon during the time when a person is reaching for a pants pocket to retrieve the license. It seems like this recent incident in MN, the officer may have been towards the front and left of the driver?
*Some* people on this forum need to face the possibility that this may have been a bad shoot, albeit one predicated by similarity/ mistaken identity that could well enough have justified the initial police stop.
We don't have enough information yet to make critical judgement, and may never, regardless if the officer was too trigger happy -or was in some way justified.
If the deceased was NOT reaching for a gun (and why would he tell the officer he had a permit, and was armed, if he was planning on shooting a police officer?) then it WAS a bad shoot, one driven by fear.
That the "girlfriend" was a heavy pot smoker, or even that it may have been a low level marijuana sales (and smoke a little?), still, if the man was not reaching for a gun, and I would dare say if a gun not in view, then the police officer began shooting unjustifiably.
I'm sure I'll get lectures here now all about how dangerous it can be to be a police officer. It can be, and is. It can also be dangerous to be driving while black, with 'black' criminals willing to fight it out with police officers having been much of the reason for just why. Historically, there have always been more than a few 'white' criminals who are willing to fight with the police (have taken shots at them, sometimes killing an officer) too, so I need no lectures from others here. I'm getting old, and have guns stuck in my face many times -- and have lived through it so far. I do know how to act and not get shot by police, or bad guys, either(!), or at least have been able to successfully extemporize, so far.
They should give the officer a medal.
There are millions of black Americans that don’t cling to the special privilege of not taking responsibility for their actions or their welfare but there also millions that do. It’s America’s biggest challenge to break the Democrats’ grip on the latter.
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