Preloading

What Diamond Reynolds Would Say to the Officer Who Killed Her Fiancé

Season 5 Episode 509
Aired on 04/28/2018 | CC
Witnessing the police shooting of her fiancé, Philando Castile, in 2016 has left Diamond Reynolds shattered and in pain ever since. The event was traumatic on many levels—in fact, her daughter was also in the vehicle when the shooting took place—so Iyanla attempts to help Diamond sort through her layers of emotions. She instructs Diamond to imagine that the officer who fatally shot Philando is right in front of her, and then Iyanla asks her to say what she needs to say to him.

"What I want you to know is that you scarred me and my daughter for the rest of our life," Diamond says during the exercise. "You exposed us to our deepest fear, that's losing someone who really loved us."

Iyanla then asks Diamond to consider taking back her power. "[The officer] has to live with this for the rest of his life. You don't have to," Iyanla tells Diamond. "You'll always have the memory, but you don't have to live in the trauma of it."

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