Let us go slowly on the Minnesota shooting

By Tom Quiner

What went wrong in Ferguson?

There was a rush to judgement. A cop was tried by the press for shooting Michael Brown and found guilty.

The president and assorted Democratic politicians were quick to indict the police before an investigation even began.

When the dust had settled, when cooler heads had conducted a detailed investigation, when forensic evidence was analyzed, the officer who shot Michael Brown was exonerated of any wrong doing.

It was determined he shot Brown in self defense.

We have another shooting in Minneapolis that has saturated airwaves, interrupted only by the assassination of five Dallas police officers.

In the recent shooting in Minnesota, Philandro Castile was pulled over by a police officer because of a broken tail light.

The cop asked to see his ID. Standard stuff.

Castile informed the officer that he was packing a registered gun.

His hands were in the air.

Nonetheless, the officer shot Mr. Castile several times without provocation.

This info comes from an eye witness in the car with Castile, Diamond Lavish Reynolds, who is the victim’s girl friend. Ms. Reynolds’ three year old daughter was in the back seat.

Reynolds pulled out her smart phone in the aftermath of the shooting to record events. She has held press conferences and even been on The View to claim that her boy friend was shot without provocation, fueling the already tense climate being fomented by the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Yes, Philander Castile is Black.

Ms. Reynolds claims the police did not treat her or her daughter well after the shooting. She demands that the police officer be charged with first degree murder.

Ms. Reynolds may be exactly correct in everything she said. Some reports suggest that the officer may have mistakenly thought Castile was a robbery suspect, which still doesn’t excuse shooting him.

What happened?

It will require an investigation. Let’s get all the facts in before we convict a cop or demonize a dead man.

Can we trust Diamond Lavish Reynolds’ account of events? Watch the video above produced by David Michael Lynch and draw your own conclusions.

Justice must be blind. And it must be thorough and fair and trustworthy.

Let the process work.