‘I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. Boy, was I wrong’: black therapist wounded by Miami police
Charles Kinsey was lying flat on his back with his hands in the air, trying to calm an autistic man playing with a toy truck, when he was shot by an officer who says he was trying to protect him
A black therapist who was trying to calm an autistic man playing with a toy truck in the middle of a North Miami street says he was shot by police even though he had his hands in the air and repeatedly told them that no one was armed.
The moments before the shooting were recorded on cellphone video and show Charles 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 from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. “Wow, was I wrong.”
But the North Miami police officer who shot Kinsey was actually trying to protect him, and intended to shoot the autistic man next to him, but missed, the head of the police union said Thursday.
It was a stunning admission from the police officer and from John Rivera, who heads Miami-Dade’s Police Benevolent Association. But it was one meant to calm the fears of a nation besieged with cellphone videos of police shooting and sometimes killing unarmed black men.
In this case, Rivera said, the officer ended up wounding the man he was trying to save.
“I couldn’t allow this to continue for the community’s sake,” Rivera said Thursday during a hastily called news conference. “Folks, this is not what the rest of the nation is going through.”
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’
The 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. 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 aftermath of Castile’s shooting, prompting nationwide protests over the treatment of blacks by police.
North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said the Kinsey investigation had been turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local state attorney.
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.
The video does not show the moment of the shooting. Kinsey’s attorney, Hilton Napoleon II, said there was about a two-minute gap in which the person who shot the video 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.
Kinsey, 47, said he was trying to coax his 27-year-old patient back to a nearby facility that he had wandered from. Police ordered Kinsey and the patient, who was sitting in the street playing with a toy truck, to lie on the ground.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey says to his patient in the video, which was filmed from about nine metres away. “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.
An officer later fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg, assistant police chief Neal Cuevas told the newspaper.
After the shooting, Kinsey said he asked an officer why he was shot and the officer said “I don’t know.’” Napoleon said officers handcuffed Kinsey and left him lying in the street on his stomach for 20 minutes without rendering first aid.
Additional reporting by Tribune News Service
