Here’s the Dashcam Footage of the Philando Castile Shooting

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I don’t know what to say about this. Philando Castile had been pulled over because he and his girlfriend “looked like” people who had been involved in a robbery. Nevertheless, for the first minute it’s an ordinary traffic stop, with both officers able to get a good look at Castile and his girlfriend. Then Castile tells one of the two officers that he has a gun in the car:

Castile, calmly: Sir, I have to tell you I do have a firearm on me.

Officer, calmly: Okay, don’t reach for it then.

Officer loosens gun and pulls it halfway out of its holster.

Castile, calmly: I’m, I, I was reaching for…

Officer, deliberately: Don’t pull it out.

Castile, calmly: I’m not pulling it out.

Girlfriend: He’s not…

Officer, panicky: Don’t pull it out!

Officer fires seven gunshots in two seconds.

Officer, panicky, nearly in tears: Don’t pull it out. Don’t move. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Don’t move. Don’t move.

I’m not a cop. I don’t know what it’s like to be a cop. But it’s hard to believe this had to happen. It’s dusk, so there’s enough light to see by. The other officer on the scene is calm the entire time, with his hands up around his chest. He doesn’t seem to think Castile presents any threat. And even if the first officer was being overly cautious, surely having his gun drawn and ready to fire was sufficient. Nothing in this scene makes it look like he had a good reason to fire when he did.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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