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| Cell phone video shows Charles Kinsey lying in the street with his hands up. Screengrab of video provided by Hilton Napoleon |
MIAMI (AP) July 20, 2016 — Authorities say a Florida police officer shot and wounded an autistic man's caretaker following reports of a man threatening to shoot himself.
North Miami Assistant Police Chief Neal Cuevas told The Miami Herald (http://goo.gl/rhHVyt ) that officers responded to the scene Monday to find 47-year-old Charles Kinsey, a therapist who works with people with disabilities, according to WSVN-TV (http://bit.ly/2ac7zm1), trying to get his 27-year-old patient back to a facility from where he wandered.
Cuevas says police ordered Kinsey and the patient, who was sitting in the street playing with a toy truck, to lie on the ground. Kinsey lies down and puts his hands up while trying to get his patient to comply. An officer then fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg, Cuevas said. No weapon was found.
Kinsey's attorney, Hilton Napoleon, provided a cellphone video to the Herald on Wednesday taken moments before the shooting. It shows Kinsey lying in the middle of the street with his hands up, asking the officers not to shoot him, while the autistic man sits next to him, yelling at him to "shut up."
"Sir, there's no need for firearms," Kinsey said he told police before he was shot, according to the station. "It was so surprising. It was like a mosquito bite."
Kinsey is black. Police haven't released the name or race of the officer who shot him.
# video and photo of video by Hilton Napoleon
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Update -- Brian Entin reports for WSVN7 Miami News,
NORTH MIAMI, FLA. (WSVN) - A therapist who works with people with disabilities is telling his story after he said police shot him while he was trying to help his patient with autism.
Cellphone video was released Wednesday afternoon showing Charles Kinsey lying on the ground with his hands in the air, telling officers that weapons are not necessary. “When I went to the ground, I’m going to the ground just like this here with my hands up,” Kinsey said, “and I am laying down here just like this, and I’m telling them again, ‘Sir, there is no need for firearms. I’m unarmed, he’s an autistic guy. He got a toy truck in his hand.”
In his hospital bed, Kinsey said, he was attempting to calm an autistic patient who ran away from a group home. Kinsey could be heard in the video saying, “All he has is a toy truck. A toy truck. I am a behavior therapist at a group home.” Read More -- http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/
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UPDATE - July 22, 2016
Miami police: Officer tried to shoot autistic man, hit caretaker insteadAssociated Press article by Terry Spencer
John Rivera, who runs the Miami Police Benevolent Association, told reporters Thursday that the officer, who has not been identified by name, is a decorated four-year veteran of the police force and a member of the SWAT team. The police department said on its Facebook page Thursday evening that the officer is a 30-year-old Hispanic. Earlier in the day, Chief Gary Eugene said the agency will be transparent as the investigation unfolds.
The admission by Rivera and the officer was intended to help calm the fears of the nation following a rash of police shootings, and sometimes killings, of black men. Rivera said the officer fired three times and hit 47-year-old Charles Kinsey in the leg.
Kinsey, who was trying to coax the 27-year-old autistic man back to a group home he'd run away from, is recovering from his injuries.
Monday's shooting comes amid weeks of violence involving police.
Five officers were killed in Dallas two weeks ago and three law enforcement officers were gunned down Sunday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Before those shootings, a black man, Alton Sterling, 37, was fatally shot during a scuffle with two white officers at a convenience store there. In Minnesota, 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was also black, was shot to death during a traffic stop. Cellphone videos captured Sterling's killing and the aftermath of Castile's shooting, prompting nationwide protests over the treatment of blacks by police.
Thomas Matthews said Thursday that when he noticed North Miami police officers responding to a commotion a block from his usual outdoor sitting spot Monday, he grabbed his binoculars and saw a middle-aged black man and a younger autistic man sitting in an intersection.
The officers, he said, grabbed rifles from the patrol cars' trunks and crept toward the men. The autistic man was holding something in his hand. Peering through his binoculars, he could see the object was a toy truck. Matthews says he tried to tell an officer who had stayed behind for crowd control, but she told him to back up.
oon, three shots rang out and therapist Kinsey was injured. The shooting drew national attention because much of what happened before the shooting was captured on video.
"If she would have told the other officers, maybe they wouldn't have shot," said Matthews, a 73-year-old African-American. He ran a North Miami flower shop before retiring and has lived in the area for years. He said he has never had a problem with North Miami police.
"But I guess with all the shootings that are going on, they are nervous and shook up," Matthews said.
At a news conference Thursday, Chief Eugene said the investigation has been turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney's office. He called it a "very sensitive matter" and promised a transparent investigation, but refused to identify the officer or answer reporters' questions. Eugene, a Haitian-American with 30 years of South Florida police experience, just became chief last week.
"I realize there are many questions about what happened on Monday night. You have questions, the community has questions, we as a city, we as a member of this police department and I also have questions," he said. "I assure you we will get all the answers."
During a Thursday news conference, Rivera, said the officer believed Kinsey's patient was armed, and the officer was trying to shoot the patient in an attempt to save Kinsey's life.
Nancy Abudu, the American Civil Liberties Union's legal director in Florida, said her group hasn't received any brutality complaints about the North Miami police or about any questionable shootings before this week's.
Kinsey's attorney, Hilton Napoleon II, said he is already talking to North Miami city officials about a monetary settlement for his client, who is married with five children. City officials did not return a phone call seeking confirmation.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told reporters the Justice Department is aware of the shooting and working with local law enforcement to gather all of the facts and to decide how to proceed.
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who represents the area, said she was in shock.
"From what I saw, he was lying on the ground with his hands up. Freezing. But he was still shot," said Wilson, a Democrat.
"This is not typical of North Miami," she said. "We're not accustomed to this tension. ... This cannot happen again."
The chief said officers responded after getting a 911 call about a man with a gun threatening to kill himself, and the officers arrived "with that threat in mind" — but no gun was recovered.
Cellphone video shows Kinsey lying on the ground with his arms raised, talking to his patient and police throughout the standoff with officers, who appeared to have them surrounded.
"As long as I've got my hands up, they're not going to shoot me. This is what I'm thinking. They're not going to shoot me," he told WSVN-TV (http://bit.ly/2ac7zm1) from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. "Wow, was I wrong."
The video does not show the moment of the shooting. Napoleon said there was about a two-minute gap in which the person who was recording had switched off, thinking nothing more noteworthy would happen. It then briefly shows the aftermath of the shooting. He would not say who gave him the video.
"Lay down on your stomach," Kinsey says to his patient in the video, which was shot from about 30 feet away and provided to the Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2ahReMa). "Shut up!" responds the patient, who is sitting cross-legged in the road.
Kinsey said he was more worried about his patient than himself.
"I'm telling them again, 'Sir, there is no need for firearms. I'm unarmed, he's an autistic guy. He got a toy truck in his hand," Kinsey said.
After the shooting, Napoleon said officers handcuffed Kinsey and left him lying in the street on his stomach for 20 minutes without rendering first aid.
Kinsey said he asked an officer why he was shot and the officer said "I don't know."
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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UPDATE - again...
Police Commander Suspended For Alleged Fabrications About Charles Kinsey Shooting
The Huffington Post, article by Michael McLaughlin | July 22, 2016
A North Miami, Florida, police officer who shot an unarmed black mental health therapist was identified Friday as a SWAT team member, and a police commander accused of fabricating information about the shooting was suspended.
A lawyer for the wounded therapist, Charles Kinsey, meanwhile, told the Miami Herald he does not believe a police union official who claimed the shooting was an accident.
SWAT team member Jonathan Aledda was identified Friday as the cop who fired three shots during the confrontation Monday in which Kinsey was wounded in the leg.
Bystander video shows Kinsey lying in the street with his hands up shortly before the shooting. Kinsey said he had been trying to calm a patient with autism who had run from a nearby group home. The patient’s toy truck apparently was mistaken for a gun by a 911 caller.
Aledda thought Kinsey was at risk from the other man in the street, according to John Rivera, head of the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association. The officer tried to shoot the man he thought was attacking Kinsey, but mistakenly shot Kinsey instead, Rivera said.
Kinsey’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon, on Friday cast doubt on the union leader’s explanation. He said he didn’t believe that a SWAT team member with four years’ experience would be a poor shooter. Napoleon also said the officer should have warned Kinsey to move away if the intended target was the other man.
Kinsey, in an interview from his hospital bed, said he asked Aledda why he shot him after he was hit. He said the officer answered, “I don’t know.”
Aledda is on administrative leave while the authorities review what happened.
Police officials also suspended Commander Emile Hollant without pay for what North Miami City Manager Larry Spring Jr. said were inconsistencies in his statements about the shooting. Officials wouldn’t elaborate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/police-suspended-charles-kinsey-shooting_us_5792926ee4b01180b52f1098?section=
# we will continue to update this post as information becomes available.
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