Another day, another police killing
by Tom Sullivan
In bleeding color:
A St. Paul man died Wednesday night after being shot by police in Falcon Heights, the aftermath of which was recorded in a video widely shared on Facebook in which the man’s girlfriend says the “police shot him for no apparent reason, no reason at all.”
Friends at the scene identified the man as Philando Castile, 32, cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in St. Paul.
Castile had cooked “for 12 to 15 years” at a Montessori School. Let that sink in. Philando Castile is black.
The girlfriend started the live-stream video with the man in the driver’s seat slumped next to her, his white T-shirt soaked with blood on the left side. In the video, taken with her phone, she says they were pulled over at Larpenteur Avenue and Fry Street for a broken taillight.
This after police shot and killed Alton Sterling Tuesday outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. Sterling, the “CD man,” was known for selling music and DVDs there. His shooting was also captured on video. Edmond Jordan, the family’s attorney, told CNN:
“Alton was out there selling CDs, trying to make a living. He was doing it with the permission of the store owner, so he wasn’t trespassing or anything like that. He wasn’t involved in any criminal conduct,” Jordan said.
Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the Triple S Food Mart, said he saw the officers slam Sterling on a car.
“They told him not to move,” he said. “He was asking them what he did wrong.”
He said the officers then used a Taser on Sterling at least once before shooting.
Alton Sterling is black. Protests continue. Federal authorities are investigating. Etc., etc.
Again.
The details almost don’t matter anymore. At what point do police in this country look themselves in the mirror and ask, “Maybe it really is me?”
The Washington Post is tracking the number of people killed by police in the Home of the Free. There were 990 in 2015. There were 505 showing for 2016 when I typed this. Alton Sterling sat at the top of the list. Philando Castile will soon replace him. But not for long.