National NAACP head calls for stronger oversight of police

The national head of the NACCP is renewing his call for stronger oversight of police after the death of Philando Castile. A St. Anthony officer shot and killed the 32-year-old African-American man during a traffic stop Wednesday night.

In a visit to the Twin Cities Sunday, NAACP President Cornell Brooks said Castile was the victim of racial profiling — a practice he said dishonors the oath officers take.

After meeting privately with Minnesota civil rights leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton at Progressive Baptist Church on St. Paul's east side, Brooks addressed the congregation.

Brooks compared the fight against what he calls police misconduct to struggles the NAACP led decades ago.

"If we fought lynching ropes and white sheets in the last century, we can fight guns and badges and blue uniforms and those who would lynch and dishonor their oaths in this century," he said. "That we can do."

Later, Brooks told reporters that tough laws against racial profiling combined with robust data collection about traffic stops are key steps the state of Minnesota and cities must take. He said nonviolent protest is a means to that end.

Brooks denounced the killings of five police officers in Dallas as well as violence Saturday night in St. Paul during protests against the Castile shooting. St. Paul police say 21 officers were hurt when some protesters who shut down Interstate 94 threw rocks, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails.

"It is wrong to attack people, to use violence to solve the problem of violence," he said. "It is wrong. You do not stand in the lineage of Martin Luther King. You don't stand in the lineage of Rosa Parks. You desecrate the moral tradition of civil rights and the moral tradition of nonviolence when you do that."

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis also condemned the violence. On Twitter, the group said "White anarchists and agent provocateurs" are to blame. Authorities arrested more than 100 people on the freeway.

And Castile's mother issued a statement urging demonstrators to remain peaceful.

The mood was far less tense at demonstrations and other events Sunday.

Hundreds of elementary and middle school students marched nine blocks from Maxfield Elementary to J.J. Hill Montessori School, where Castile worked as a cafeteria supervisor.

Also in St. Paul, dozens of spoken word artists and musicians performed at an event called "Support at the Capitol."

And in St. Anthony, hundreds rallied peacefully outside police headquarters, calling for the prosecution of officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot Castile Wednesday night.

Tom Kelly, an attorney who's representing Yanez, said Saturday that his client is shaken and upset by the shooting. Kelly said Yanez had probable cause to pull over Castile's car, and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will likely offer more details when their investigation is over. Kelly also said the shooting had nothing to do with race and everything to do with "the presence of a gun."