African American

Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver and the passengers, were white?” Dayton said, a day and a half after Castile was killed. “I don’t think it would have. … I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront that this kind of racism exists.”

It was a forceful declaration from the white governor of a mostly white Midwestern state, almost two years after a white police officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, in Ferguson, Mo.

Brown’s death launched a national movement against police violence and unprecedented scrutiny of police use of force.

Dayton, a Democrat, said the shooting in Falcon Heights was “beyond the pale.”

“Nobody should be shot and killed in Minnesota … for a taillight being out of function,” the governor said. “Nobody should be shot and killed while seated still in their car. I’m heartbroken.”