On Wednesday, video was released of Charles Kinsey, a caretaker who was shot by North Miami police, even after he was seen lying on the ground with his hands raised.
Police were called to the scene after receiving reports of someone with a gun threatening suicide. It turns out the person in question was a young autistic man with a toy truck in his hand.
Kinsey can be seen explaining that he and the autistic man were unarmed and that the man was holding a toy truck, not a weapon of any kind. Despite lying down and trying to look as nonthreatening as he could, Kinsey was shot in the leg– one of three rounds fired by the officer.
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“I thought it was a mosquito bite, and when it hit me I had my hands in the air, and I’m thinking I just got shot!” Kinsey told WSVN. “And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me were, ‘I don’t know.’”
“Arriving officers attempted to negotiate with two men on the scene, one of whom was later identified as suffering from autism,” said North Miami Police in a statement. “At some point during the on-scene negotiation, one of the responding officers discharged his weapon, striking the employee.”
After Kinsey was shot by officers, he was reportedly placed in handcuffs.
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“He throws his hands up in the air and says, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ They say lie on the ground, so he does,” Kinsey’s attorney Hilton Napoleon told the Miami Herald. “He’s on his back with his hands in the air trying to convince the other guy to lie down. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Napolean is reportedly negotiating a potential settlement with the city of North Miami. The incident is also under investigation by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
Kinsey is in good condition and expected to recover.
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https://youtu.be/QAJRcRZPfwQ