Footage has emerged showing the moments before a carer was shot in the leg while lying on the ground with his hands up.
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A caretaker at a group home, Charles Kinsey, 47, was in the street because a 23-year-old autistic man had left the facility.
An unarmed care worker was shot by police in North Miami while attempting to calm down his autistic patient.
Kinsey said he was stunned by the shooting, like when a mosquito bites unexpectedly.
North Miami, Florida police wounded Kinsey, a therapist at a group home, during the July 19 incident in an officer-involved shooting.
In the video, Kinsey pleads with officers to back down, and also tries to calm down his patient, telling him to be still and lie on his stomach.
Police said they rushed to the scene following reports of a man threatening to shoot himself. He said he couldn’t believe the officer shot him while he had his hands in the air, especially considering the information he provided.
Kinsey said the officers then handcuffed him and flipped him over as he bled onto the concrete.
Later, a North Miami Police Officer fired his weapon, leaving Kinsey with injuries significant enough to require medical attention.
In an interview with the TV station from his hospital bed, Mr Kinsey said he was more anxious about his patient than himself during the incident. When they arrived, the officers found caretaker Charles Kinsey sitting next to an autistic patient playing with a toy truck in the middle of the road. Kinsey later told Miami’s WSVN that he asked the officer why he fired the gun, and the officer said, “I don’t know”.
Kinsey begged “Rinaldo” to lay down and be still, to which the heavy-set man replied: “Shut up!”
Kinsey said at the time, he was anxious for his patient more than himself.
“From what I saw, he was laying on the ground, with his hands up, freezing. He got a toy truck in his hand, ‘” Kinsey said, restating what could be heard on the video. Officers told him to put his hands in the air and he obliged. “When he hit me, my first thing I’m thinking, I’m thinking about my family”.
The video was obtained by Kinsey’s attorney Hilton Napoleon and aired by WSVN on Wednesday.
“There’s no justification for shooting an unarmed person who’s talking to you and telling you that they don’t have a gun, and that they’re a mental-health counselor”, Napoleon said.
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State Attorney Kathy Rundle released a statement Thursday saying in part that the “Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the circumstances” of the shooting “to determine whether the actions of the shooting officer constitute a criminal act”. “Wow, was I wrong”, he said.
