Standing in front of the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday, the mother of Philando Castile demanded justice for her slain son and an end to police violence and bias. 
 
 Ahead of Valerie Castile towered the Cathedral of St. Paul, where hundreds will gather for her son’s funeral Thursday. 
 
 “He was suddenly taken from us under horrible circumstances,” she said. “I am devastated, but … he is the driving force in me to make sure this doesn’t happen to another mother.” 
 
 Valerie Castile’s attorney, Glenda Hatchett, said they plan to file a lawsuit in the shooting death of Philando Castile at the hands of a St. Anthony police officer during a traffic stop last week in Falcon Heights. 
 
 Hatchett also said she will closely monitor the criminal investigation into the shooting and will ask that a special, independent prosecutor be brought in. 
 
 Castile, of Robbinsdale, would have turned 33 this Saturday, said Valerie Castile, wearing a button of her son as she spoke at a press conference that drew national media. 
 
 Valerie Castile just said her son was a pillar in community, didn't deserve to die like that. pic.twitter.com/iGLFOhEWcG — Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) July 12, 2016 
 
 FAMILY QUESTIONS OFFICER’S REASON FOR STOP 
 
 Valerie Castile said she has avoided watching the video that her son’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, posted of the immediate aftermath of the shooting. She said she is baffled as to why St. Anthony officer Jeronimo Yanez shot her son Wednesday. 
 
 “I have done everything in my power as a parent to teach my children to abide by the law,” she said. “My son abided by the law, he was killed by the law. I know that he didn’t do anything to provoke the officer to shoot him.” 
 
 The Castile family said they don’t believe Yanez’s attorney’s recent statement that the officer pulled over Philando Castile because his vehicle had a broken tail light and because Castile looked like a suspect in a recent nearby armed robbery. 
 
 “He has a job … he don’t need to rob or steal or do anything of that nature,” said Valerie Castile. 
 
 In police radio traffic obtained by the Pioneer Press from a scanner listener, an officer says, “I’m going to stop a car. … I’m going to check IDs. I have a reason to pull them over. The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery. The driver looks like one of our suspects just (because) of a wide-set nose.” 
 
 That description screams of racial profiling and raises the question of whether the officer had the right to pull him over, Hatchett said. 
 
 “Saying … ‘an African-American man with a broad nose’ is like saying ‘a white woman with blonde hair,’ ” Hatchett said. 
 
 Philando Castile had obtained his permit to carry a gun less than a year ago, his mother said. He didn’t get it because he felt unsafe, but because he was exercising his right to bear arms, she said. 
 
 Valerie Castile said her son was careful and would put the gun in the glove compartment when he got in the car. 
 
 In the video Reynolds took just after the shooting, she stated that Castile had “let the officer know that he … had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm.” 
 
 Yanez’s attorney has said the officer was reacting to a gun Castile reportedly displayed during the traffic stop, and not Castile’s race, when he shot Castile. 
 
 On Tuesday, Hatchett underscored that Castile had a job, as a nutrition services supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in St. Paul, and had no felony criminal record. 
 
 “This is a man who was doing everything right,” Hatchett said. 
 
 SEEKING INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION 
 
 The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting and Hatchett said she was there when an investigator met with the family Sunday to explain the process and assure them it would be a thorough investigation. Hatchett said the family has not heard from St. Anthony police. 
 
 While Hatchett said she is not going into the case “assuming that there’s a coverup,” she said they won’t depend on the BCA investigation. 
 
 “We will have the best team possible on this matter,” Hatchett said. She also said a special prosecutor should be appointed to bring “a greater sense of trust.” 
 
 Gov. Mark Dayton and Minnesota congressional officials have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Castile’s death. A DOJ spokesman said Thursday that the agency will continue to monitor the BCA investigation and “stands ready to provide assistance.” 
 
 Hatchett said Tuesday she will also be contacting DOJ “because I want to make sure that the federal government is watching closely what has happened and what will happen in this case.” 
 
 Hatchett responding to what she would say to the officer's attorney. pic.twitter.com/Gyexk3UWNe — Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) July 12, 2016 
 
 Hatchett did not specify who she will file a lawsuit against, saying, “We’re going to sue whoever’s responsible.” 
 
 The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota also requested an independent prosecutor “to assure the community that justice and police accountability will be vigorously pursued by somebody who is outside the state’s prosecutorial system,” according to a Tuesday letter to the governor, state attorney general and Ramsey County attorney. 
 
 ‘THIS TIME … MUST BE THE LAST TIME’ 
 
 Hatchett, a former celebrity judge, said she was moved to work with the Castile family because she has two adult sons and worries about the same thing happening to them. 
 
 She said one of her sons told her, “Mom, you must do something. You must step up, you must help give a voice to this family.” 
 
 She read a passage that her son wrote about the Castile incident: “This time he wasn’t running from the police. This time he wasn’t fighting with the police. This time he was not trying to get his gun. This time he was not acting irresponsibly. This time he was not doing anything unlawful. … This time we have a young man employed, loved by his coworkers, adored by the children that he served, loved by his family, loved by a community, respected deeply. This time we have a man complying with a police officer’s directives. … This time … we are telling you must be the last time.” 
 
 Hatchett, who is based in Atlanta, flew to the Twin Cities over the weekend. When they first met, Hatchett said she hugged Valerie Castile “as one mother to another.” 
 
 “Because Philando is a son to all of us,” Hatchett said. “This should not just be this family’s pain. It should be one that we all share collectively, but more importantly that we are committed to make a change.” 
 
 Hatchett said there is a need for police to collect information about the race of people they pull over, along with the reason for the stop, for overall analysis. She said the fact that Castile was stopped by police in Minnesota at least 52 times should be investigated. 
 
 Though Hatchett noted that Dayton has been criticized for saying last week that he does not believe Castile would have been shot during a traffic stop if he had been white, she said, “It was the truth.” 
 
 “As a judge, I have seen cases where the police were … justified in using deadly force, so this is not about, ‘All policemen are bad,’” Hatchett said. “… But this, … based on what I know so far … should have never happened.” 
 
 Funeral services for Philando Castile will be at noon Thursday at the Cathedral of St. Paul, his family said. 
 
 The viewing at the Cathedral will be 10 a.m. to noon, according to Brooks Funeral Home. 
 
 Valerie Castile requested from the Cathedral that her son’s funeral be held there. “My son is a king,” she said Tuesday. “He is also a martyr, so I thought that that would be the place for him to have his services.” ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Alex Johnson 
 
 A familiar face is representing the family of Philando Castile, the black Minnesota man shot and killed last week by police — Glenda Hatchett, the former host of TV's syndicated "Judge Hatchett" show. 
 
 Hatchett, 65, a former chief judge of Fulton County Juvenile Court in Atlanta, appeared at a news conference Tuesday with Castile's mother, Valerie Castile, at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. She said the family is planning a lawsuit, although she didn't reveal against whom. 
 
 TV judge Glenda Hatchett tells reporters Tuesday in St. Paul, Minn., that Philando Castile's mother, right, will file a lawsuit in her son's fatal shooting by police. Jim Mone / AP 
 
 Castile, who was about to turn 33, was killed last Wednesday during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, a suburb of the Twin Cities. The Hennepin County medical examiner's office said he died of multiple gunshot wounds. 
 
 "I am deeply concerned about what seems to be an epidemic of African-American men being killed by police officers," Hatchett's law firm, which is based in Atlanta, said in a statement. "We have often seen demonstrations and debates and I raise the critical question, 'When will there be systemic reform?'" 
 
 "Judge Hatchett" ran for almost eight years in syndication until it was canceled in 2008 and has been aired in reruns ever since. It was similar in format to other so-called reality judge shows, like "Judge Judy" and "The People's Court." 
 
 She is to return in a similar program, "The Verdict With Judge Hatchett," on the Justice Central cable channel later this year. ||||| The attorney for the St. Anthony police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop last week said his client pulled him over because the vehicle he was driving had a broken tail light and because Castile looked like a suspect in a recent nearby armed robbery. 
 
 The disclosure offered new insight into what transpired before the July 6 death. Thomas Kelly also said over the weekend that officer Jeronimo Yanez was reacting to a gun Castile reportedly displayed during the traffic stop, and not Castile’s race, when he opened fire on the black man. 
 
 Kelly revealed no further details about what else his client said about how Castile displayed the gun before the fatal shooting. 
 
 “This is absolutely nothing to do with race and everything to do with the presence of a gun,” Kelly said Monday. “I am hoping we will be able to comment more fully in the next couple days.” 
 
 Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, was also in the car at the time of the shooting along with her 4-year-old daughter and live-streamed its aftermath on Facebook. She has said Yanez shot Castile after Castile told him he had a gun and a permit for it and then reached for his wallet. 
 
 The Pioneer Press confirmed that Castile did have a gun permit issued out of Hennepin County. 
 
 Reynolds disputed Monday that Castile displayed the gun during the traffic stop. 
 
 “Absolutely incorrect, there was … never any visibility of the gun,” she told MSNBC. “ … He was very laid back, he complied, he did exactly what he was told and that was only license and registration.” 
 
 CLIPS OFFERS INSIGHT 
 
 Kelly’s statement about the armed robbery matches what is overheard in audio clips of police radio traffic obtained by the Pioneer Press from a scanner listener. 
 
 A spokesman from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the agency cannot “confirm or authenticate any specific pieces of evidence,” but is “looking at all evidence that may be relevant to the investigation. 
 
 The BCA, the agency leading the investigation into the shooting, has so far declined to release the scanner audio of the Castile shooting citing the “active investigation.” 
 
 In the recording obtained by the Pioneer Press, a man who represents himself as a police officer is overheard talking to what sounds like a dispatcher. 
 
 “I’m going to stop a car. … I’m going to check IDs. I have a reason to pull them over. The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery,” the officer is overheard saying in the recording. “The driver looks like one of our suspects just (because) of a wide-set nose.” 
 
 Shortly after, the officer is heard yelling, “Shots fired, Larpenteur and Fry.” 
 
 The exchange that follows includes the person telling what sounds like a dispatcher that “one adult female has been taken into custody,” and the driver is “at gunpoint.” 
 
 ROBBERY REMAINS UNSOLVED 
 
 The BCA distributed a crime alert July 2 after the armed robbery of a gas station at 2424 Larpenteur Ave. in Lauderdale, asking for the public’s help identifying two suspects caught on camera. 
 
 In the crime alert an employee of the gas station described the suspects as: 
 
 -The first being a black male, with longer than shoulder length dreadlocks hair, wearing blue jeans, a green plaid long sleeved shirt, a baseball hat with marijuana leave emblems on it, dark colored shoes with white in them, and wearing glasses. Suspect may have had a mustache. 
 
 -The second being a black male, in tan pants, tan shoes with white soles, a green long sleeved jacket, a green baseball hat, and shoulder length dreadlocks hair. Some of the dreadlocks had been pulled into a bun and were pulled through the snap on the back of the baseball hat. He was also wearing glasses, had a small mustache and some facial hair on his chin. 
 
 The St. Anthony Police Department, along with the Ramsey County Crime Lab, were the investigating agencies listed on the alert. 
 
 St. Anthony Police Capt. Jeff Spiess declined to comment on whether that armed robbery is connected in any way to the Castile case. 
 
 He did say the investigation into the robbery remains active and that no suspects have been arrested. 
 
 He declined to comment on whether Castile was ever identified as a suspect in that case. 
 
 He added that St. Anthony police are not investigating any other armed robberies in their coverage area of St. Anthony, Lauderdale and Falcon Heights. 
 
 FAMILY: CASTILE PROFILED, NOT A ROBBER 
 
 Castile’s uncle, Clarence Castile, said his nephew had a full-time job and no reason to rob anyone. He added that his nephew was stopped because of racial profiling, and he slammed the officers’ handling of the stop. 
 
 “First thing, my nephew is not a robber. … That is not in his nature. That is what I know. My nephew had a full-time job, there was no reason for him to do anything like that,” Clarence Castile said. 
 
 He later added about his nephew: “He got killed so quickly after they approached him, it’s like he didn’t have time to do nothing. He didn’t have time to say, ‘No, officer, you are mistaken.’ … They come up with guns pulled.” 
 
 Clarence Castile added that he is still in disbelief that his nephew is dead and that he’d spent the last several hours planning his funeral. 
 
 CELEBRITY ATTORNEY HIRED 
 
 The Castile family recently retained Judge Glenda Hatchett of the Hatchett Law Firm out of Atlanta to represent them in any civil matters related to Castile’s homicide, according to Na’eema Rashad, who described herself as a spokesperson for the family. 
 
 Hatchett was the star of the TV court show “Judge Hatchett,” which ran on ABC between 2000 and 2008. 
 
 A person answering phones for Hatchett’s office said all questions for her were being referred to Rashad. 
 
 Rashad said the family set a news conference for 10 a.m. Tuesday and would address questions related to Kelly’s disclosure about the reason Yanez pulled Castile over at that time. 
 
 She said details about Castile’s funeral arrangements also would be released then. 
 
 Yanez and his fellow officer on the St. Anthony Police department, Joseph Kauser, were placed on administrative leave following the shooting. 
 
 FATEFUL NIGHT 
 
 Authorities with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the two stopped Castile as he was driving near Larpenteur Avenue and Fry Street in Falcon Heights just after 9 p.m. Wednesday. 
 
 Castile,32, was driving and Yanez approached that side of the vehicle. Kauser went to the passenger side. 
 
 Sometime during their interaction, Yanez shot Castile repeatedly, killing him. 
 
 Authorities investigating the case have not disclosed why Yanez fired his weapon nor why he pulled Castile over. 
 
 Speaking again on behalf of his client, Kelly said that Yanez is “terribly saddened for the losses of (Ms. Reynolds) and Mr. Castile’s family.” 
 
 The recently married father of one has been with St. Anthony police for four years. 
 
 “He has been very upset about the whole incident,” Kelly said. “No one likes to use deadly force and Officer Yanez is no different… It’s a last resort… And he only used deadly force when it became necessary.” 
 
 Clarence Castile said he doesn’t buy that. 
 
 “For anyone to say that my nephew was a threat is just a lie because that is not in his nature,” Clarence Castile said. “He had a permit (for his gun) but he wasn’t given the opportunity that a white person would have been given… That is why he is dead, because he’s black.” 
 
 Philando Castile was a longtime employee of the St. Paul public school district. At the time of his death, he was working as the kitchen supervisor for J.J. Hill Montessori, where he was well liked among colleagues and students. 
 
 Tad Vezner, Tory Cooney, KARE 11 and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
– The family of Philando Castile will be filing a civil lawsuit that will seek justice for his shooting death and also push for "systemic changes" to law enforcement to prevent violence and bias at the hands of police, Castile's mother and the attorney representing his family said at a Tuesday press conference, per the Pioneer Press. "We're going to sue whoever's responsible," said lawyer Glenda Hatchett, adding that they wouldn't be depending on the state's own probe to assist them. Hatchett, a 65-year-old former Georgia judge in Fulton County who used to sit behind the bench on the reality court show Judge Hatchett, noted the family will also press for criminal charges to be lobbied against officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot Castile during the July 6 traffic stop. "Valerie Castile and her family are very passionate and committed to ensuring that Philando's death is not just another statistic," Hatchett said in a press release, per KARE 11. "I am deeply concerned about what seems to be an epidemic of African-American men being killed by police officers," Hatchett said in a statement from her Atlanta-based law firm, per NBC News, adding she took on Castile's case "to make sure that working class people have a legal dream team," 11Alive notes. Hatchett also addressed reports of police dispatch audio from the night Castile was killed, noting she hasn't confirmed the audio is genuine but that if true, IDing a black man with a "wide-set nose" is about as helpful in tracking down a suspect as IDing a white woman with blond hair. Castile's mother, Valerie, also spoke at the press conference on the grounds of Minnesota's State Capitol in St. Paul, calling her son a "humanitarian" and "pillar in the community," per the New York Daily News. "In what country being honest and telling the truth will get you killed," she said. "You answer that one for me." (Watch Hatchett's entire presser at 11Alive.)