But a North Miami police officer shot him anyway. Kinsey told WVSN-TV that he asked the officer why he shot him and he replied, “I don’t know”.
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The police document, or “fact sheet”, released Thursday, said that officers were dispatched, based on a 911 call which claimed a “White Hispanic Male” wearing gray and black trousers was “threatening to commit suicide and that he had a gun pointed at his head”. The reported gun, he said, was actually a toy truck.
An unarmed black carer for an autistic man has been shot by Florida police, after he tried to bring his patient back to a group home the disabled man had wandered away from yesterday..
He could be heard in the video footage of the shooting trying to explain the situation.
“He’s traumatized by that”, Clinton Bower, who runs the group home Kinsey works for, said referring to the autistic man. “In fact he ended up having to be hospitalized yesterday because he’s so traumatized”. Miami police leaders have said they don’t know whether the officer was aiming for Kinsey or Rinaldo when Kinsey was shot.
“When he hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air”, he said. “A toy truck. I am a behavior therapist at a group home”.
Kinsey said he was surprised, like when a mosquito bites unexpectedly. “I assure you we will get all the answers“.
“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not gonna shoot me, that’s what I’m thinking”, Kinsey said.
“They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come”. Cellphone videos captured Sterling’s killing and aftermath of Castile’s shooting, prompting nationwide protests over the treatment of blacks by police.
The shooting itself was not recorded, but in the video, which has been widely circulated on social media, Kinsey can be heard talking to his patient and police while lying flat in the street.
The Miami-Dade State’s Attorney’s Office is now handling this investigation.
The officer’s been suspended while Charles Kinsey recovers at the hospital, wondering what he could’ve done differently. “Wow, was I wrong”.
The officer, who shot, Kinsey, has been placed on adminstrative leave, which is standard procedure. Gary Eugene, the city’s police chief, who was appointed to the position just a month before the shooting, said his department was dedicated to an open probe.
“At that time, we will conduct our own investigation and review all of the evidence to determine whether the actions of the shooting officer constitute a criminal act that can be proven beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt”, said Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
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He is also outraged that Kinsey was handcuffed and was left on the road until paramedics arrived about 20 minutes later, he said.
