Philando Castile and the Pattern Before Floyd

Philando Castile was thirty-two years old and worked as a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in Saint Paul. His coworkers called him Mr. Phil. He knew the names of the hundreds of children he served lunch to, their allergies, which ones couldn't have peanuts. He had been stopped by police at least forty nine times in thirteen years, mostly for minor traffic violations, resulting in fines he could rarely afford to pay.

On the evening of July sixth, twenty sixteen, Officer Jeronimo Yanez of the Saint Anthony Police Department pulled Castile over on a residential street in Falcon Heights, a small suburb between Saint Paul and the University of Minnesota campus. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, was in the passenger seat. Castile's four-year-old daughter was in the back seat.

Castile told Officer Yanez he was legally carrying a licensed firearm and reached for his identification. Yanez fired seven times. Castile died. Reynolds, with her daughter watching, began livestreaming on Facebook. The video reached millions of people within hours.

Officer Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter by a jury on June sixteenth, twenty seventeen.

Four years and forty-six days later, George Floyd died nine miles away, also under a Minneapolis-area police officer's restraint. The United States Department of Justice investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department, completed in twenty twenty-three, documented a pattern of unconstitutional use of force disproportionately directed at Black residents, a pattern that Castile's killing had made visible years before Floyd's death made it undeniable.

The street in Falcon Heights where Castile was killed has been renamed Philando Castile Place. Mr. Phil's face is in a mural at the school where he worked. His coworkers still serve lunch to children who were not born yet when he died.