Police car footage of Dae'Anne, 4, and Diamond Reynolds in the police car after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile. Photo / via video
Police car footage of Dae'Anne, 4, and Diamond Reynolds in the police car after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile. Photo / via video
Heartbreaking new footage from the back of a police car has been released showing the four-year-old daughter of Philando Castile's fiancee, begging her mother to keep calm moments after he was shot dead by cops.
Diamond Reynolds, who was handcuffed, and her young daughter Dae'Anne had been put in the back of the squad car immediately after officer Jeronimo Yanez opened fire on Castile as he sat in the passenger seat of his car in St. Anthony, Minnesota, last July, the Daily Mail reported.
Footage from the back of the cop car, obtained by an FOIA request, showed Reynolds screaming in anguish and anger before her terrified daughter begged her to stop.
Video captured by a camera in the squad car of St. Anthony Police officer Jeronimo Yanez, shows the Minnesota police officer shooting into Philando Castile's car. Photo / AP
"Mom, please don't scream 'cause I don't want you to get shooted!' she sobbed, giving her cuffed mother a tight hug.
Reynolds tries to reassure Dae'Anne, who is in tears, that everything is ok, but appears to be in shock.
"I can't believe they just did that," she whispered to herself in the video. "Please let him be ok."
"I can keep you safe," the little girl tells her mother.
The mother-of-one, who had repeatedly asked police if they could remove her handcuffs so she could call family and friends to ask for them to pick her and her daughter up, said: "Damn, is there no one to take these b*****s off?"
To which her panicked daughter pleaded with her to stop.
"No, please no! I don't want you to get shooted! Don't take them off until they take them off you," the four-year-old told her.
The youngster who had just witnessed her mother's fiance get shot by police in front of her own eyes, then said to herself: "I wish this town was safer... and we wouldn't live in it.
Philando Castile. Photo / via Facebook
Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile, who live streamed his shooting on Facebook. Photo / AP
"I don't want it to be like this anymore."
Reynolds was also heard desperately praying that her boyfriend was still alive.
"He's a good man lord, Jesus, please, please, please," she repeated.
Police did not tell her Castile was dead until she was in the interview room at the station. Dae'Anne was also becoming increasingly upset about the thought of losing her soon-to-have-been step-father.
"Now that's he's gone, he might be gone forever," the youngster said, through tears. "If he is gone forever, I'm going to miss him very much," she told her mother.
The then-4-year-old said she had also been praying for a "safe place" with "no more police and no more shootings and no more guns."
The upsetting footage has been released less than a week after Yanez was acquitted on all counts in the case.
The shooting on July 6, 2016, in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights gained widespread attention after Reynolds livestreamed its gruesome aftermath on Facebook.
On Tuesday, authorities released the dash-cam footage from Yanez's patrol car which shows the seconds which preceded it. It was never shown to the jury in court, despite being frequently referenced.
Valerie Castile, the mother Philando Castile, addressed the media after Geronimo Yanez was found not guilty on all counts in the shooting death of her son. Photo / AP
It showed from start to finish how Yanez pulled the family over and told Castile and his girlfriend that their taillight was broken.
And how rapidly the situation escalated after Castile, who was licensed to carry a weapon, calmly informed him he was armed.
"Sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me," Castile said in the footage.
Before Castile has even finished talking, the officer began pulling his weapon out of the holster.
Yanez said, "OK. Don't reach for it then. Don't pull it out!" before firing into the car.
After being shot Castile wailed: "I wasn't reaching!" - a detail Yanez left out of his police interview when asked if he'd heard the victim say anything after being shot.
"No he did not respond. Um he just kept his arms up and I don't remember hearing anything coming out of his mouth if he said anything," he had claimed.
The harrowing video also showed Reynold's young daughter opening the door of the car and slowly crawling out, confused, as her father lay reeling in the front seat after being shot.
She was scooped up in confusion by Yanez's partner and taken away from the vehicle. Officers ordered Reynolds out of the car, and she got out, hands held high. Soon, she was heard wailing. Her daughter eventually joined her in the back of the cruiser.
Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, had a permit to carry the weapon.
Yanez's acquittal prompted days of protests, including one in St. Paul last Friday that attracted thousands and shut down Interstate 94 for hours. Eighteen people were arrested.
The release of the dash cam video made some people even angrier about the death. Steven Belton, the black president and CEO of the Minneapolis Urban League, said the video showed "a 21st century lynching" and was "powerfully painful". He said it's a reminder of black men "hanging from trees, black men being shot, beaten, stabbed for being black".
He said Castile was "gunned down like a rabid animal".
