Philando Castile put on a suit and tie to interview for a supervisory position in the school district where he had worked since he was a teenager. He told the interviewer his goal was to one day “sit on the other side of this table.”
His upbeat disposition won him the job.
“He stood out because he was happy, friendly and related to people well,” said Katherine Holmquist-Burks, principal at J.J. Hill Montessori in St. Paul, Minnesota, who hired him to oversee the school cafeteria.
Now, colleagues and family members are trying to understand why a police officer in a St. Paul suburb fatally shot Castile, 32, after stopping his car Wednesday night. The U.S. Justice Department announced it would monitor the state investigation of the shooting, which Gov. Mark Dayton said would look at whether Castile’s race played a role. Castile was black.
A passenger in the car, Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, said the officer was Asian. State investigators named him as St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez but did not give his race; city police reports identified him as a member of the National Latino Police Officers Association.