“I was more anxious about him than myself”, Kinsey, 47, told WSVN-TV in Miami from his hospital bed.
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“It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No I just got shot!'” Kinsey said. Cellphone video provided to media outlets by Mr. Kinsey’s attorneys shows the victim with his hands up while warning officers that an autistic man next to him named Rinaldo does not have a gun.
Video of the incident went viral.
North Miami Mayor Smith Joseph, who had yet to give a statement on the shooting, opened the news conference with a firm declaration that justice will be served in the case.
A North Miami group home employee has been hailed as a “hero” after he was shot and injured by a police officer while he was lying on the ground next to a man with autism, who had run away from the home. One of the bullets struck Kinsey in the leg.
“When she found out her son was the target of the shooting in North Miami, it devastated her”. What he couldn’t explain was how after the shooting, officers placed Kinsey in facedown in handcuffs for 20 minutes while he bled. “The video clearly shows him with his hands as high in the air as he can possibly get them”, Napoleon said.
The officer released a statement defending his actions. The officers had received a call of an armed, suicidal man who they believed to be the man next to Kinsey.
Aledda has been placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated. It read in part, “I did what I had to do in a split-second”. Three shots were fired, wounding Kinsey. He asked his patient to be still and lie down.
The man beside him rocks back and forth.
“Sometimes police officers make mistakes, because at the end of the day they are not computers”, Association President John Rivera told Reuters. “Wow, was I wrong”.
In a statement released Thursday, the North Miami Police Department said its officers responded to a report of a white Hispanic male publicly threatening to commit suicide with a gun. In a departure from the norm during recent police shootings nationwide, both council members had harsh words for the officers involved in the shooting. Kinsey also is black.
Aledda is a four-year veteran of the force and also a member of the SWAT Team.
Meanwhile in Baton Rouge, a memorial service was held Thursday night for the three police officers killed there last Sunday.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has taken over the investigation.
Prosecutors said they’ll decide whether the officer should be charged after the state agency completes its investigation. “Because I have nothing bad to say about an officer.I am married to one”.
Simon called on law enforcement agencies to examine policies on the use of force and responses to people with mental health issues. If that was the case, said the attorney, “he had plenty of time to tell my client to move”. “Let people know that you’re trying to change”, she said. North Miami has formed a committee to try to improve its community policing.
Sharing this incident with WSVN, Kinsey said he was stunned by the shooting, like when a mosquito bites unexpectedly.
North Miami has a population of about 62,000 people, almost 60 percent African-American. But some key questions remain unanswered, especially whether the police officer who fired was actually aiming at the autism patient.
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“Folks, being a police officer has always been hard and lately it’s been more hard, more challenging”.
