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For Philando Castile, Social Media Was the Only 911
The spine-chilling video begins with a plea: “Stay with me.”
Diamond Reynolds was begging her boyfriend, Philando Castile, after a police officer fatally shot him following a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, last night. But the desperate request also applied to the nearly 3 million people who eventually tuned in to Reynolds’ Facebook Live stream of the moments after the ordeal.
As Reynolds captured the shooting’s aftermath—from Castile’s blood-drenched t-shirt to the officer’s screams to Reynolds’ daughter’s efforts to comfort her mother—the Facebook audience stayed with her, turning Philando Castile into a household name quite literally overnight.
Because what else could they do? What else could she?
recourse. In recent years, social media has changed that dynamic, giving bystanders a way to document these all-too-frequent acts of violence. It’s what happened in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Walter Scott in Charleston, South Carolina. Just this week, it’s what happened in the case of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
But Reynolds’ live video was different. Not just a documentation of what happened, it was also a real-time cry for help. Unable to call the authorities as she watched her loved one slip away, Reynolds instead called on the public.
http://www.wired.com/2016/07/philando-castile-social-media-911/
Diamond Reynolds was begging her boyfriend, Philando Castile, after a police officer fatally shot him following a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, last night. But the desperate request also applied to the nearly 3 million people who eventually tuned in to Reynolds’ Facebook Live stream of the moments after the ordeal.
As Reynolds captured the shooting’s aftermath—from Castile’s blood-drenched t-shirt to the officer’s screams to Reynolds’ daughter’s efforts to comfort her mother—the Facebook audience stayed with her, turning Philando Castile into a household name quite literally overnight.
Because what else could they do? What else could she?
recourse. In recent years, social media has changed that dynamic, giving bystanders a way to document these all-too-frequent acts of violence. It’s what happened in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Walter Scott in Charleston, South Carolina. Just this week, it’s what happened in the case of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
But Reynolds’ live video was different. Not just a documentation of what happened, it was also a real-time cry for help. Unable to call the authorities as she watched her loved one slip away, Reynolds instead called on the public.
http://www.wired.com/2016/07/philando-castile-social-media-911/
She is a very smart woman. This article makes some excellent points we can all learn from.
