Officials are doing their best to explain why a cop shot Charles Kinsey, an unarmed black man, who was lying on his back in the street with his hands in the air. “All he has is a toy truck – a toy truck”, he says. That recording since went viral on social media. Sitting next to him was Rios, who was holding a toy truck. Then he says, “Reynaldo, please be still Reynaldo”. But the autistic man ignored Kinsey, and a SWAT officer fired three rifle rounds as he took cover behind a squad vehicle, 50 yards away from the two men at the intersection.
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The video doesn’t show what happened when the officer opened fire.
“The police are here with big guns, on top of my auto”.
“This wasn’t a mistake in the sense that the officer shot the wrong guy or he thought that Kinsey was the bad guy”, Rivera said in a press conference Thursday.
His sister, Miriam Janice Rivers, spoke out late Friday night saying that her brother had been traumatized by the entire incident.
It’s not clear on the audio if the officer is referring to Kinsey, or the 24-year-old autistic man seated on the ground next to him, who was under Kinsey’s care. “This is a case where a police officer was trying to save Mr. Kinsey’s life, and unfortunately, his shot went astray”.
Celestine was taken into custody and later police said in their report, “It was determined by officers that Mr. Celestin was the owner of the business that officers responded to and that Mr. Celestin was the victim…” If that was the case, said the attorney, “he had plenty of time to tell my client to move”. Matthews says he tried to tell an officer who had stayed behind for crowd control, but she told him to back up.
The shooting drew national attention because much of what happened before the shooting was captured on video. “… They should have known we may have a person with autism”.
“Our kids love electronics”, she said.
He added that the offending officer as well as the rest of the Police Benevolent Association are wishing Kinsey a speedy recovery. Police officers, meanwhile, have been gunned down by ambushers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Kinsey, a behavior therapist at MacTown Panther Group Home, was shot once in the leg, sparking outrage across the nation over excessive use of police force.
In interviews, Kinsey said he repeatedly told police while he was lying on the ground that there was no weapon and not to shoot.
Sources told Local 10 News that Hollant was the voice on the radio telling dispatchers and other officers that someone had a gun.
“And if that costs something, the police are responsible for it”, Dietz said. Alleda has been with the North Miami Police Department for four years and is also a member of its SWAT team, NBC News reported.
“This will not be tolerated”, Spring said of Hollant’s changing testimony.
“One of the things we stress is officer safety”.
“That’s a reckless act and I don’t understand any justification for it”, Napoleon said.
Rivera asked the public to wait for the investigation to be complete before jumping to conclusions about the officer and the police department, and read a statement that the officer in question sent via text message.
The video deepened tension with the community in the wake of other shootings this month in Louisiana and Minnesota.
According the ACLU, of the 598 people who were shot and killed by police this year alone, 88 were unarmed. “He thought Mr. Kinsey was about to be killed”.
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“They will provide us with their factual findings and conclusions”, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. “Bringing in an outside agency shows our commitment to transparency and objectivity in a very sensitive matter”, he said. Officials are investigating the incident.
