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Anger, sorrow, fear, determination: The internet reacts to the death of Philando Castile

People take to social media to respond to the graphic video that shows Castile after he was shot by a police officer.

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Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Terry Collins Staff Reporter, CNET News
Terry writes about social networking giants and legal issues in Silicon Valley for CNET News. He joined CNET News from the Associated Press, where he spent the six years covering major breaking news in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the AP, Terry worked at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Kansas City Star. Terry's a native of Chicago.
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Katie Collins
Terry Collins
2 min read
Protesters outside the governor's mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota, following the shooting death of Philando Castile.
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Protesters outside the governor's mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota, following the shooting death of Philando Castile.

Protesters outside the governor's mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota, following the shooting death of Philando Castile.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, was killed by a policeman on Wednesday after he was pulled over for having a faulty taillight. Diamond Reynolds, his girlfriend and a passenger in the car he was driving, broadcast the aftermath of the incident in real time on Facebook Live.

The graphic video remains on Facebook. Unlike other videos on the site that autoplay, this one is blacked out and comes with a warning. "Are you sure you want to watch this?" it asks.

The answer for millions of people: Yes.

The internet has seen what happened to Castile and has plenty to say about it, as well as the other well-documented cases of police violence against black men (and others) in the US. It also isn't quiet about shootings that could happen in the future.

As many social-media users point out, the police violence toward black men is nothing new, but the cameras and live video are. The visibility of these events makes them impossible to ignore. It also provides an alternative narrative to the accounts given by law enforcement.

Now a direct line exists between the victims and the public. The public doesn't need to wait to hear a police statement or a court verdict to get a sense of what happened. And there is a public forum, the internet, for comments.

Many everyday people took advantage of that forum, as did Melissa Colorado, a reporter with local Minnesota TV station KARE 11, who posted video of Reynolds describing her treatment after the shooting.

President Barack Obama took to social media as well, saying "Americans should recognize the anger, frustration, and grief that so many Americans are feeling" but should "come together as a nation, and keep faith with one another."

Here's a selection of posts.