Seconds after an officer-involved shooting occurred in Falcon Heights, Minn., during a traffic stop Wednesday for a broken tail light, the woman in the passenger side of the front seat of the car began live-streaming the shooting's aftermath with the police officer a few feet away, his gun still pointed at her bloody fiancé. The driver had a personal gun, and the woman said he told the officer he was armed and had a concealed carry permit.
"Please don't tell me this, Lord. Please, Jesus, don't tell me that he's gone," Diamond Reynolds said in the video, with her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat. "Please, officer, don't tell me that you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir."
The driver in the car, Philando Castile, lay slumped backward during the entire incident.
"He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm," Reynolds said as she broadcast the Wednesday evening shooting on Facebook.
Castile, an African-American, was a school nutrition services supervisor, reports CNN. He was about to turn 33 years old.
Though viewers can't see the St. Anthony police officer's face, anxiety can be heard in his voice as he tells Reynolds to keep her hands visible. Reynolds replies, "I will, sir, no worries. I will."
The officer still sounds distressed as he explains, "I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off it."
She continues pleading outside the car as officers approach her with guns drawn. One orders her to her knees. The cell phone films the sky.
"Please Jesus, no. Please no. Please no, don't let him be gone," Reynolds says before officers place her and her daughter in a police cruiser.
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Castile was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center. Castile's mother, Valerie Castile, said she learned of the shooting via phone calls from people witnessing the live stream on Facebook. When she and her daughter arrived on the scene, they weren't permitted to speak to Reynolds, she said. Police won't let her ID him until Friday, she said.
Castile's mother said that he and his sister had stopped by her house Wednesday. During the visit, they had discussed the dangers of carrying weapons, even though both of them have concealed carry permits, reports CNN.
"I know he didn't antagonize that officer in any way to make him feel like his life was threatened.
"I'm not getting the answers that I'm asking for," she said. "They're telling me that they don't know anything, so I don't know anything."
Reynolds asked that people pray for her daughter "because I will be OK, but I don't know if I can say the same for my 4-year-old daughter."
She said she began live-streaming after the shooting because she wanted people to know the truth. "I wanted it to go viral so the people could see," she said. "I wanted everybody in the world to see what the police do."
