Artwork: Luke Willis Thompson, autoportrait, (2017). Installation view, Chisenhale Gallery 2017. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and produced in partnership with Create. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Andy Keate.
July 6, 2016, had begun as so many other nights had for 32-year-old Philando Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile had gone out for a haircut, then to dinner with his sister before picking up his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her four-year-old daughter. The family of three had gone food shopping and were heading home for the evening.
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It was just after 9:00 p.m. when St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez spotted the white 1997 Oldsmobile on the road and radioed into a nearby squad car, saying, “The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery. The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just because of the wide-set nose. I couldn’t get a good look at the passenger.”
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At 9:05 p.m. CDT, Yanez ordered Castile to pull over and approached the car. Forty seconds later, he shot Castile seven times at point blank range in an extrajudicial killing witnessed by millions on Facebook Live.
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Reynolds had the presence of mind to film the incident from start to finish, showing the world the truth: what happens when a black man legally carries a firearm in the United States. Yanez asked for his license and registration. Castile informed Yanez that the information was in his wallet, and that he was carrying a firearm. He reached for his wallet to show the documents requested and Yanez freaked out. He became convinced that Castile was going to pull his gun, despite Castile’s dying words: he was following the law.
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