Philando Castile Made Mistakes
When looking over the dash cam footage, something stuck out to me. I swear from all the social media posts, the outrage and the calls for action that Philando Castile did everything right. Being a fellow concealed carrier, licensed in multiple states, I felt outrage. I initially almost took to my YouTube channel to get my thoughts out. But, as I normally do, I began to look into the facts. How can you make a video and explain something so horrific without the details? So I watched the dash cam footage and was somewhat amazed at how the whole thing went down. I mean it all happened within 7 seconds of Philando saying the word "gun". So after reviewing the dash cam footage, did Philando do everything right?
The answer is no. He did not. I know that is not a popular answer with the people who are fueled by emotion, but he didn't. Many people keep saying it, like the person above in reference to my other article "Philando Castile Incident Provides Concealed Carry Lessons". I have been to countless courses and read many articles on the subject of concealed carry. Much of it being what to do when encountering a police officer. Now each state is a littler different, so reference your particular state or the state you are traveling too and their unique laws. But one thing through all this training and research I have drilled in my brain too keep my hands visible. In the dash cam footage it is clear that Philando did not. He, to my best estimation, was trying to find his concealed carry permit.
Now the police officer made multiple mistakes, including not telling Philando what to do. He kept telling him "Don't take it out", referencing the gun Philando said he had. But he never told him to stop or show me your hands, etc. He told him what not to do, which left open tons of things for him to do. This shows his inexperience. Now I will give it to both the officer and Philando. Prior to Philando saying "I do have to tell you I have a firearm on me" the stop was going amazingly well and was professional. But Philando did make a mistake in not giving his concealed carry permit to the officer as well as not verbalizing himself being a concealed carry permit holder. So nowhere in this entire stop was the officer aware Philando was a concealed carry permit holder. This is a tragedy. Unless we want more tragedies everyone saying Philando did everything right needs to stop saying that. It will cost more people their lives. We should learn from the mistakes, not enable others to make the same mistakes.
PHILANDO'S MISTAKES 1. Did not inform the officer he was a concealed carry permit holder 2. Did not give the officer his concealed carry permit 3. Do not say you have a gun. Say you are a concealed carry permit holder. Wait for further instruction.
4. Hands were not always visible to officer.
These are the facts, whether people like them or not. If you are a concealed carry permit holder you should learn from these mistakes. There was no reason for Philando to die. He could have done amazingly small things which would have assisted the situation. But I believe lack of training and information contributed to his death. We should be discussing about how to handle the situations instead of creating new hashtags to garner support for falsely created context like "Philando did everything right".
