His mother, Valerie, who was often called on to help when her son’s car was impounded, believes that the police were stopping Mr. Castile not because of his driving but because of his race. “Driving while black,” she said. ...So how did the officer know that he was black, if the windows were tinted?
Amid the string of traffic stops was one in Maplewood, another suburb of St. Paul, one afternoon in 2008. Mr. Castile had driven a friend’s car, a 1997 black Mercury Marquis, to a Taco Bell for lunch. An officer pulled him over for tinted windows. ...
Mr. Castile’s sister Allysza said her brother’s love of wide-bodied, older-model cars, like the 1997 Oldsmobile he bought for $275 and was driving when he was shot, attracted police officers’ attention.
Ms. Castile was pulled over three times when she borrowed his car, she said, because “those are mostly stereotyped as drug dealer-type cars.”
It appears that his cars were being profiled, not his race.
I have been pulled over just because my car was unusual for the neighborhood. None of this seems unreasonable to me.
In the six years after he lost his license, Mr. Castile was pulled over another 21 times, repeatedly convicted of driving with an invalid license, fined and ordered not to drive.This might be police harassment if he never did anything wrong, but maybe the cops were good at spotting scofflaws like him.
6 comments:
The guy was pulled over 21 times. About how many times was your car pulled over for being in a neighborhood where your car was unusual ? About how many times has your car been in neighborhoods where it's unusual to the neighborhood ?
I was once pulled over 3 times in one day. I have had experiences where it appeared that cops were picking on me for no good reason. If the man had been pulled over 21 times, then he should have known how to behave.
You too should have known how to behave to have avoided being pulled over 3 times in one day ?
Yes, and I did not get shot.
You haven't been pulled over 52 times, have you ? Maybe the odds were with you and had you been pulled over 52 times, you would have been shot. Maybe you weren't shot because you're not black. Do you think that that could have had anything to do with why you weren't shot after you'd been pulled over ?
Do you think that black people shouldn't drive in predominantly white neighborhoods or you shouldn't drive in neighborhoods where you're not in the majority ?
If he is driving without a drivers license, he is probably not following the rules of the road either. Cops should be pulling over those who drive without a license.
No, I think that I should be able to go into black neighborhoods, but I have been stopped by cops for doing that. I did not pull a gun on the cop and the cop did not shoot me.
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