Minnesota lawmaker calls for DOJ probe of police shooting

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) Wednesday called for a federal probe into the shooting of a Minnesota man killed during a traffic stop by a police officer. 

Philando Castile was pulled over for driving with a busted tail light Tuesday and shot when he went to get his ID from his back pocket, a passenger in the car said. 

{mosads}”The circumstances surrounding this tragic event call for an immediate investigation led by the United States Department of Justice,” McCollum said in a statement Wednesday. 

“A federal investigation will provide all Minnesotans with a clear understanding of the facts surrounding this incident and ensure accountability appropriate to those facts.”

Philando Castile was driving in Falcon Heights with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and Reynolds’s 4-year-old daughter when the incident took place. In the aftermath of the shooting, Reynolds took a video that showed Castile conscious, but bleeding, in the driver’s seat and a police officer pointing a gun through the window. 

The shooting has sparked protests with angry crowds gathering outside the governor’s mansion.

It’s the second officer-involved shooting of a black man in two days, following the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. 

The Department of Justice civil rights division has said it will investigate that shooting.