NPR host looks into death of Philando Castile

Eyder Peralta, one of the hosts of the National Public Radio (NPR) show The Two-Way, presented his research on Philando Castile’s interactions with a discriminatory police force before Castile’s untimely death.

Peralta’s presentation on “The Driving Life and Death of Philando Castile”, which took place in Mason Hall on Nov. 10, was the most recent event in the Unpacking Baltimore series.

The Hopkins Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) has organized the series to foster dialogue between Hopkins and the Baltimore community.

Peralta began by describing the events leading to Castile’s death.

His girlfriend live-streamed Castile’s fatal shooting by a police officer in St. Paul, Minn. at a traffic stop.

The video, which showed her talking to the officer as Castile was slumped over with visible gun wounds, sparked protests around the country.

On the surface Castile’s death seemed similar to other incidents of police-involved deaths.

However, Peralta’s research discovered that Castile was part of an unending cycle of traffic stops, traffic tickets and ensuing driver’s license suspensions when unable to pay the fines.

According to Peralta, 32-year-old Castile had been stopped by police 46 times since he started driving at 19.

He had amassed more than $6,000 in fines from tickets and license suspensions.

Based on police records, all of his violations had been for minor violations like a crooked license plate, blocking an intersection, or a missing taillight.

Peralta said that all but six of the stops were based on observations that a police officer could only have made from inside the vehicle.

Peralta also accounted for where each incident happened in St. Paul. He said that police data showed that blacks were statistically much more likely to be stopped in majority white suburbs. Castile, for example, was stopped and killed in Falcon Heights.

Later, Peralta drew comparisons between St. Paul policing and the Baltimore Police Department.

“One of the things that the Department of Justice (DOJ) found, here in Baltimore, is that police leaders would give their cops templates. They would say, this is what you would charge somebody with,” he said. “In these forms that they issue, the words ‘black male’ were automatically included in the description of the arrest. It was printed on the form.”

Peralta commented on his experience reporting for NPR on the Baltimore protests following Freddie Gray’s death.

Peralta quoted a conversation he had with a Baltimorean outside of a burning Korean-owned shop.

“This is what he told me, ‘Where’s the peace when we’re getting shot? Where’s the peace when we’re getting laid up? Where’s the peace when we’re in the back of ambulances? They don’t want to call for peace then,’” Peralta said.

‘But people really want peace when the white people gotta get out of bed, when the police gotta put on riot gear, when the cops start talking about ‘oh we got broken arms.’ Then they want peace. Peace — it’s too late for peace.’”

Peralta elaborated and related this man’s comments to the policing in St. Paul.

“For Philando Castile, there is no peace. When you’re stopped 45 times over the course of your short life, that’s not peace,” he said.

Peralta is uncertain about what a Trump presidency will mean, but said that the Civil Rights Division of DOJ will be affected.

“If you go on what Trump has said on the campaign trail, I would imagine that he will cut back on [the Civil Rights Division]... what President Trump will do, who knows,” Peralta said. “I guarantee that the Civil Rights [Division] of the DOJ will not be as aggressive as it has been under President Obama.”

Shani Mott, the co-director of undergraduate studies at the Center for Africana Studies, talked about the series’ purpose and stressed that social activism involves everyone.

“We do not do this work alone, but shoulder to shoulder with the citizens of Baltimore. We do it for the purpose of generating an ethical and critical citizenry through intellectual, historical, interpersonal and community engagement,” Mott said. “We collectively work to deepen our understanding of each other, mobilizing our full power to inspire and to become agents of change.”

Senior Lydia DuBois hoped that Peralta would touch on how a Trump presidency might impact the current state of policing.

“I would have liked to hear a little more about what the election means for policing, but I don’t know what it does mean because we’ve seen all this go down this past year with Obama’s presidency,” said DuBois. “I want to go home and look up how the police system is going to change according to the president, if it will at all, and if the president even has control over it.”