#BlackLivesMatter: Woman captures boyfriend being shot dead by American cop

If you were under the impression that racist attacks were a thing of the past, a little over 24 hours prior to Castille's death, another life was claimed in Louisiana in a similar string of events, leading to the death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, also black.

On 5 July, Sterling was shot and killed, after police responded to a complaint about an armed man threatening people outside a convenience store. A cellphone video footage captured Sterling pinned to the ground and then being shot at by two officers from point blank range. The video bears proof of the fact that there was no apparent threat from Sterling's end, but he got shot anyway.

Here's the footage:

WARNING : Graphic imagery

Between 5 July and 7 July 2016, two black men in America were gunned down by the police for no apparent reason. A Washington Post report claimed that Sterling's was the 505th fatal police shooting in the US by an on-duty officer in 2016 alone, making Castille's death the 506th incident.

The nation has been mourning the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, two black men in their thirties, whose lives were claimed by on-duty police officers, reinstating the need for the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. The chilling footage of both the incidents was made available online, and accessible to the masses, sparking worldwide outrage over the irresponsible, 'racist' attacks unleashed by the American police force.

The movement that was triggered by the incident that unfolded in 2014, when Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager was gunned down by a white police officer in Ferguson, has been gaining ground over the years. But lives are still being claimed, over one's physical features. Racially motivated attacks are proof that prejudice still reigns large, as people are deemed to be threats, and killed because of the color of their skin.

We watch, with our hearts in our mouths, when TV shows like Orange is the New Black give us a glimpse into incidents of racist attacks claiming the lives of our favourite characters. But when we watch the bone chilling footages on social media of the kind of atrocities that abound in real life, the realities of racially motivated attacks hit home harder.