Minnesota's officer-involved shooting to receive federal monitoring

The governor of Minnesota has promised federal help from the Justice Department during the investigation of an officer-involved shooting of a black man in the state.

|
Richard Tsong/Star Tribune/AP
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D), right, meets with Diamond Reynolds, left, and her daughter, at the Governor's Mansion as protesters gathered to decry the shooting death of Reynolds' boyfriend, Philando Castile, by police in Falcon Heights, Minn.

State officials in Minnesota promised federal monitoring of the investigation on an officer-involved shooting of a black man just one day after it happened, a sign governments are shifting both the transparency and speed of responses to such incidents.

The Wednesday shooting in St. Paul, Minn., was the second shooting of a black man to make headlines this week – the first occurred in Baton Rouge, La., on Tuesday – prompting both popular protests for justice and promises of multi-level investigations at unprecedented speed.

The state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will lead a probe of the incident, with investigative assistance from the Justice Department, Fox News reported. The promise of federal monitoring echoed the response to Tuesday's incident in Louisiana, where the state's governor called for federal oversight one day after the incident. 

The speed of the response has not satisfied everyone, as activists contend that prosecution of police officers involved is their aim, but it does suggest a growing awareness of the need for proactive accountability, as The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday.

"It's a prudent step to restore trust and confidence in the investigation process," Jody Armour, a professor of law who specializes in criminal and racial justice at the University of Southern California, told The Monitor. "A couple years ago it might have taken weeks or months to get to this point."

After protesters gathered in front of his residence, chanting anti-police slogans and calling for justice, Gov. Mark Dayton (D) noted his concern about the case's racial component.

"Would this have happened if the passengers were white? I don't think it would've," he said according to a Fox News report, commenting that the police action was "way in excess of what the situation called for."

Protests were galvanized in part by a video posted on Facebook within hours of the incident.

"Please, officer, don't tell me that you just did this to him," Diamond Reynolds said in the video recording while her boyfriend, Philando Castile, slumped beside her. "You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir."

The video Diamond Reynolds recorded is another way shootings are becoming more visible from the very beginning. Black Americans who feel frustrated, even disempowered, with police relations increasingly see the the ubiquitous cell phone camera as a political tool, as The Christian Science Monitor's Patrik Jonsson and Henry Gass reported Thursday:

Reynolds’s impulse, after Castile was shot, to reach for her cellphone and begin narrating is one that is only growing within the black community, fed by activists seeking to further leverage the power of such videos.

“There’s a reflex that has now been developed among African-Americans that you need to pull out your cellphone and capture these things when they happen,” says Shaun Harper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Reynolds and her young daughter, who is also shown briefly in the video, have met with Gov. Dayton, who has said he was "heartbroken."

"Nobody should be shot and killed in Minnesota ... for a taillight being out of function," he said, according to The Washington Post. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Minnesota's officer-involved shooting to receive federal monitoring
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0708/Minnesota-s-officer-involved-shooting-to-receive-federal-monitoring
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe