The mother of Philando Castile joined demonstrators outside St. Anthony City Hall on Friday to protest the return to work of the police officer who fatally shot the 32-year-old during a traffic stop.

Valerie Castile spoke to two St. Anthony officers who came outside, telling them, “My son will never go to work again.”

Castile died July 6 after Jeronimo Yanez shot him in Falcon Heights. Castile’s girlfriend livestreamed the aftermath on Facebook, igniting a series of protests.

Yanez had been on administrative leave from the police department, which is standard procedure after an officer-involved shooting. He returned to work Wednesday in an administrative role until a decision is made in the Castile investigation, St. Anthony City Manager Mark Casey said in an email Friday.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension probe is ongoing, a spokesman said Friday.

About 30 people gathered outside St. Anthony City Hall, which houses the police department, throughout the day Friday. They held signs, facing Silver Lake Road as cars passed, and chanted, “Indict, convict, send Yanez to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell!”

A handful of demonstrators stood in the middle turn lane of Silver Lake Road as traffic passed. Two officers came outside to express concern for their safety and the Castile family briefly spoke with them.

Valerie and Clarence Castile, Philando's mom and uncle, talked to St. Anthony officers earlier outside City Hall. pic.twitter.com/Y87r5U7sr2 — Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) August 19, 2016

“(Yanez) should not have the opportunity to wear that uniform while this case is going on cause my nephew don’t get the opportunity to come back and live right now,” Clarence Castile, an uncle of Philando’s, told them. He said he understood the two officers couldn’t do anything about Yanez’s employment.

“We definitely hear you,” said St. Anthony police Capt. Jeff Spiess, who also said Yanez wasn’t at work on Friday.

Casey said in his email that the “decision to allow Officer Yanez to return to limited duty was made after reviewing how other departments and agencies have handled comparable, difficult situations. A return to a limited administrative employment status is similar to what other agencies have done during a pending investigation.”

Greg Taylor, an uncle of Castile’s, said he found out Yanez was back at work when he read about it in the newspaper.

“It’s a slap in the face,” he said. “To me, it just says, ‘Business as usual.’ I think it’s disrespectful. This police officer is getting praise from his chief that he’s a good officer.”

Taylor and others at the protest said they were upset about statements made to the Associated Press this week by St. Anthony Police Chief Jon Mangseth.

Mangseth defended Yanez as a level-headed member of the force with “a real sound ability when it comes to communicating and relating to people.”

In Castile’s girlfriend’s archived video of the aftermath of the shooting, Yanez is shown occasionally shouting expletives and pointing his gun at Castile as the St. Paul public school cafeteria supervisor lies bleeding in the driver’s seat of the car.

“I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand off it!” he screams. Mangseth called Yanez’s reaction common in a high-stress situation.

Castile had informed Yanez he had a permit to carry a gun, his girlfriend has said. She said he was reaching for his wallet when Yanez shot him.

Yanez’s attorney has said the officer was reacting to the presence of a gun and that one of the reasons Castile was pulled over was because Yanez thought he looked like “a possible match” for a suspect in a recent armed robbery nearby.

Valerie Castile said Friday that she believes the investigation is dragging on.

“They’re just buying time, hoping it will die down and then sweep it under the rug with the rest of the garbage, but we’re not going to let this one go,” she said. “… My son went through vigorous training and the United States of America gave him the privilege to have that gun, so you can twist it up and try to look at it any kind of way you want to, but the facts are he was permitted to have that gun and he told that officer he had that gun. Where in the world are you an honest person and you tell the truth and you still end up dead?”