Philando Castile’s Mother Speaks at St. Cloud State University

ST. CLOUD-- Two years after Philando Castile’s death, his mother Valerie Castile is fighting to keep his legacy alive.

Wednesday afternoon she spoke at St. Cloud State University as part of their Women on Wednesday series. Her son, Philando Castile, an elementary school cafeteria supervisor, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in 2016.

During the presentation, she talked about racial profiling and police brutality and shared personal stories about her son. She stressed the importance of humanizing his situation and holding open conversations about hard topics.

...understanding and have the knowledge that racism is real and we as human beings need to work on that because there is only one race and that's the human race so we need to do better as human beings and treat people the way that you would like to be treated and you know just love thy neighbor.

She is working with local police departments to change some of their training. The hope is to have psych evaluations, hours of de-escalation, and cultural bias training all become standard practice.

She also says it is important for people of all walks of life to be involved in the conversation.

No matter what area you live in or what community you live in there is violence within personal communities, not just the black communities. There's violence in every sector, wherever you live demographically there is violence as well.

Since Philando Castile's death, Valerie Castile has started a foundation in his name that supports families who have lost a loved one to gun violence.

She has also teamed up with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to develop a toolkit that anyone can refer to when interacting with police officers.