An autistic man’s therapist was shot and wounded by police in Florida while lying on the street with his hands in the air.
Charles Kinsey, who works with people with disabilities, was trying to get his 27-year-old patient back to a facility from where he wandered, North Miami assistant police chief Neal Cuevas told the Miami Herald.
Cuevas said police – who were responding to reports of a man threatening to shoot himself – ordered Kinsey and the patient, who was sitting in the street playing with a toy truck, to lie on the ground.
Charles Kinsey, who works with people with disabilities, was trying to get his 27-year-old patient back to a facility from where he wandered, North Miami assistant police chief Neal Cuevas told the Miami Herald.
Cuevas said police – who were responding to reports of a man threatening to shoot himself – ordered Kinsey and the patient, who was sitting in the street playing with a toy truck, to lie on the ground.
A lawyer for Kinsey, Hilton Napoleon, gave the Herald a video showing the moments leading up to the shooting. It shows Kinsey lying in the middle of the street with his hands up, asking the officers not to shoot him, while his patient 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 paper. “It was so surprising. It was like a mosquito bite.”
Police have not released the name of the officer who fired the shots.
“Sir, there’s no need for firearms,” Kinsey said he told police before he was shot, according to the paper. “It was so surprising. It was like a mosquito bite.”
Police have not released the name of the officer who fired the shots.
I'm all for police brutality - there is no father around so they need to learn discipline somehow - but this guy isn't the guy that needs the baton - Michael Brown needed the baton - this guy is working and fucken tells them where he works - calls them sir - and has his hands in the air - WTF
Yeah, I can't understand why this cop shot......cops are seeing what's going on everywhere, & seem to shoot first & then ask questions. Cops worst enemy is technology, smart phones & video cameras.....then again, w/o these tools, the public wouldn't know how cops were handling these situations.
In this situation, I don't see how he panics.....I would say evil & trigger happy.....makes you wonder how long these senseless shootings have been going on when we didn't have video cameras. I'm assuming its always been happening, its just technology finally caught up with the times.
These cameras can also help cops as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ands-up-as-he-tries-to-help-autistic-patient/
(This is a better article on this story)
(This is a better article on this story)
A video from before the shooting — obtained by Napoleon and shared with The Post — begins with bystanders saying “Look, look, look,” in Spanish.
“Mira, mira, mira,” a man can be heard saying, training his cellphone camera on Kinsey, who is on the ground with his hands up and trying to get the autistic man to do the same.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey tells the young man.
“Shut up,” the autistic man shouts. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Kinsey turns his attention to the police.
“Can I get up now?” he asks. “Can I get up?”
As police aim their assault rifles at the men in the street, Kinsey tries to explain to them that they pose no threat.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand. A toy truck,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video. “I am a behavioral therapist at a group home.
“That’s all it is,” he says, referring to the toy truck. “That’s all it is. There is no need for guns.”
“Let me see your hands,” a cop can be heard shouting at the autistic man. “Get on the ground. Get on the ground.”
The autistic man then begins to make noises, apparently playing with his toy.
“Rinaldo, please be still,” Kinsey tells his patient. “Sit down, Rinaldo. Lay on your stomach.”
The video then cuts out, leaving a critical gap in the footage.
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
One of the bullets struck Kinsey near his right knee, exiting his upper thigh.
“Mira, mira, mira,” a man can be heard saying, training his cellphone camera on Kinsey, who is on the ground with his hands up and trying to get the autistic man to do the same.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey tells the young man.
“Shut up,” the autistic man shouts. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Kinsey turns his attention to the police.
“Can I get up now?” he asks. “Can I get up?”
As police aim their assault rifles at the men in the street, Kinsey tries to explain to them that they pose no threat.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand. A toy truck,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video. “I am a behavioral therapist at a group home.
“That’s all it is,” he says, referring to the toy truck. “That’s all it is. There is no need for guns.”
“Let me see your hands,” a cop can be heard shouting at the autistic man. “Get on the ground. Get on the ground.”
The autistic man then begins to make noises, apparently playing with his toy.
“Rinaldo, please be still,” Kinsey tells his patient. “Sit down, Rinaldo. Lay on your stomach.”
The video then cuts out, leaving a critical gap in the footage.
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
One of the bullets struck Kinsey near his right knee, exiting his upper thigh.
“My life flashed in front of me,” he told WSVN, adding that his first thought was of his family.
His second thought was one of confusion.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising,” he said. “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No, I just got shot.'”
“Sir, why did you shoot me?” Kinsey recalled asking the officer.
“He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
A second video captures the moments after the shooting, as officers placed the injured Kinsey and the autistic man into handcuffs.
“He was like, ‘Please don’t shoot me,’ ” a bystander can be heard saying on the video. “Why they shot the black boy and not the fat boy?”
“Because the things with the blacks,” another man says.
“I don’t know who’s guilty,” adds what sounds like a woman’s voice.
His second thought was one of confusion.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising,” he said. “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No, I just got shot.'”
“Sir, why did you shoot me?” Kinsey recalled asking the officer.
“He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
A second video captures the moments after the shooting, as officers placed the injured Kinsey and the autistic man into handcuffs.
“He was like, ‘Please don’t shoot me,’ ” a bystander can be heard saying on the video. “Why they shot the black boy and not the fat boy?”
“Because the things with the blacks,” another man says.
“I don’t know who’s guilty,” adds what sounds like a woman’s voice.
Fla. police shoot black man with his hands up as he tries to help autistic patient
By Michael E. Miller Morning MixJuly 21 at 4:21 AM
Video shows moments before unarmed therapist was shot by North Miami police Play Video2:23
Charles Kinsey was trying to calm down an autistic patient who had run away from his North Miami assisted living facility when police arrived. (Courtesy Hilton Napoleon)
Police in South Florida shot an unarmed black caretaker Monday as he tried to help his autistic patient.
Charles Kinsey was trying to retrieve a young autistic man who had wandered away from an assisted living facility and was blocking traffic when Kinsey was shot by a North Miami police officer.
In cellphone footage of the incident that emerged Wednesday, Kinsey can be seen lying on the ground with his hands in the air, trying to calm the autistic man and defuse the situation seconds before he is shot.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video as police officers with assault rifles hide behind telephone poles approximately 30 feet away.
“That’s all it is,” the caretaker says. “There is no need for guns.”
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
A bullet tore through Kinsey’s right leg.
.
Kinsey said he was stunned by the shooting.
“I was thinking as long as I have my hands up … they’re not going to shoot me,” he told local television station WSVN from his hospital bed.
“Wow, was I wrong.”
Kinsey said he was even more stunned by what happened afterward, when police handcuffed him and left him bleeding on the pavement for “about 20 minutes.”
His attorney called the video “shocking.”
“There is no reason to fire your weapon at a man who has his hands up and is trying to help,” Hilton Napoleon told The Washington Post in a telephone interview Wednesday night.
Napoleon called for the department to fire the officer.
North Miami has not identified the officer or his race. The department said it is investigating the incident, which reportedly came after officers responded to a 911 call “of an armed male suspect threatening suicide.”
“Arriving officers attempted to negotiate with two men on the scene, one of whom was later identified as suffering from Autism,” police said in a statement Tuesday. “At some point during the on-scene negotiation, one of the responding officers discharged his weapon, striking the employee of the [assisted living facility].”
Police did not respond to multiple requests for comment. According to their statement, the officer who fired his weapon has been placed on administrative leave, as is standard policy in police-involved shootings.
Authorities have not said why the officer opened fire on an unarmed man with his hands prominently in the air.
[Nation remains on edge after police shootings, officer deaths]
The shooting comes at a tense time for both police and civilians.
Police across the country are currently on alert after gunmen ambushed officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, killing eight.
At the same time, police are also under scrutiny after the fatal shootings of two black men earlier this month. Bystanders filmed Baton Rouge police fatally shooting Alton Sterling in the early hours of July 5. Less than 48 hours later, Philando Castile was fatally shot by an officer in Falcon Heights, Minn. His girlfriend streamed the aftermath on Facebook Live.
Like those two incidents, the Monday afternoon altercation was partially captured on camera.
Before the cameras started rolling, the young autistic man wandered away from a North Miami assisted living facility. A manager at the facility told WSVN that the man was “about 23 years old, he’s autistic, he’s nonverbal [and] he’s relatively low-functioning.”
The autistic man sat on the ground, blocking traffic, while he played with a small white toy truck, Napoleon told The Post.
Kinsey, an employee at the facility, went to retrieve him.
Around the same time, someone in the area called 911 and reported seeing a man with a gun threatening to commit suicide, police said.
According to Napoleon, Kinsey was trying to persuade the autistic man to get out of the street when police approached with their rifles raised.
With the Sterling and Castile shootings on his mind, Kinsey laid down on the ground and put his hands in the air.
“I was really more worried about him than myself,” Kinsey told WSVN, referring to the autistic man.
Two bystander videos capture snippets of what happened next.
[After Baton Rouge, a weary fear builds among those who protect and serve]
A video from before the shooting — obtained by Napoleon and shared with The Post — begins with bystanders saying “Look, look, look,” in Spanish.
“Mira, mira, mira,” a man can be heard saying, training his cellphone camera on Kinsey, who is on the ground with his hands up and trying to get the autistic man to do the same.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey tells the young man.
“Shut up,” the autistic man shouts. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Kinsey turns his attention to the police.
“Can I get up now?” he asks. “Can I get up?”
As police aim their assault rifles at the men in the street, Kinsey tries to explain to them that they pose no threat.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand. A toy truck,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video. “I am a behavioral therapist at a group home.
“That’s all it is,” he says, referring to the toy truck. “That’s all it is. There is no need for guns.”
“Let me see your hands,” a cop can be heard shouting at the autistic man. “Get on the ground. Get on the ground.”
The autistic man then begins to make noises, apparently playing with his toy.
“Rinaldo, please be still,” Kinsey tells his patient. “Sit down, Rinaldo. Lay on your stomach.”
The video then cuts out, leaving a critical gap in the footage.
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
One of the bullets struck Kinsey near his right knee, exiting his upper thigh.
“My life flashed in front of me,” he told WSVN, adding that his first thought was of his family.
His second thought was one of confusion.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising,” he said. “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No, I just got shot.'”
“Sir, why did you shoot me?” Kinsey recalled asking the officer.
“He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
A second video captures the moments after the shooting, as officers placed the injured Kinsey and the autistic man into handcuffs.
“He was like, ‘Please don’t shoot me,’ ” a bystander can be heard saying on the video. “Why they shot the black boy and not the fat boy?”
“Because the things with the blacks,” another man says.
“I don’t know who’s guilty,” adds what sounds like a woman’s voice.
The aftermath of this Minn. police shooting was live streamed on Facebook. Here's what you need to know. Play Video3:43
Philando Castile, 32, was fatally shot by a police officer at a traffic stop outside St. Paul. His girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter were in the car with him. Reynolds live streamed the aftermath on Facebook. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar, Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
It was the officers’ reaction after the shooting that upset Kinsey and Napoleon the most.
“They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come,” Kinsey told WSVN. “I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding — I mean bleeding and I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”
“Right now, I am just grateful that he is alive, and he is able to tell his story,” his wife, Joyce, told the TV station.
Kinsey was “dumbfounded” by the shooting, Napoleon said.
“He should recover physically but he is really kind of mentally distraught,” the attorney added. “As you can see in the video, he did everything he thought he had to do and then some … and still got shot.”
Napoleon said his client was on the ground with his hands up, as in the video, when shot.
“Nobody got up or approached” the officers, the attorney said, adding that the fact the officer fired three times shows it was “not an accident.
“The straw that really breaks the camel’s back, that makes it even more frustrating, is that after my client was shot, they handcuffed him and left him on the hot Miami summer pavement for 20 minutes while fire rescue came and while he was bleeding out,” Napoleon said. “But for the grace of God he wouldn’t be with us.”
By Michael E. Miller Morning MixJuly 21 at 4:21 AM
Video shows moments before unarmed therapist was shot by North Miami police Play Video2:23
Charles Kinsey was trying to calm down an autistic patient who had run away from his North Miami assisted living facility when police arrived. (Courtesy Hilton Napoleon)
Police in South Florida shot an unarmed black caretaker Monday as he tried to help his autistic patient.
Charles Kinsey was trying to retrieve a young autistic man who had wandered away from an assisted living facility and was blocking traffic when Kinsey was shot by a North Miami police officer.
In cellphone footage of the incident that emerged Wednesday, Kinsey can be seen lying on the ground with his hands in the air, trying to calm the autistic man and defuse the situation seconds before he is shot.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video as police officers with assault rifles hide behind telephone poles approximately 30 feet away.
“That’s all it is,” the caretaker says. “There is no need for guns.”
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
A bullet tore through Kinsey’s right leg.
.
Kinsey said he was stunned by the shooting.
“I was thinking as long as I have my hands up … they’re not going to shoot me,” he told local television station WSVN from his hospital bed.
“Wow, was I wrong.”
Kinsey said he was even more stunned by what happened afterward, when police handcuffed him and left him bleeding on the pavement for “about 20 minutes.”
His attorney called the video “shocking.”
“There is no reason to fire your weapon at a man who has his hands up and is trying to help,” Hilton Napoleon told The Washington Post in a telephone interview Wednesday night.
Napoleon called for the department to fire the officer.
North Miami has not identified the officer or his race. The department said it is investigating the incident, which reportedly came after officers responded to a 911 call “of an armed male suspect threatening suicide.”
“Arriving officers attempted to negotiate with two men on the scene, one of whom was later identified as suffering from Autism,” police said in a statement Tuesday. “At some point during the on-scene negotiation, one of the responding officers discharged his weapon, striking the employee of the [assisted living facility].”
Police did not respond to multiple requests for comment. According to their statement, the officer who fired his weapon has been placed on administrative leave, as is standard policy in police-involved shootings.
Authorities have not said why the officer opened fire on an unarmed man with his hands prominently in the air.
[Nation remains on edge after police shootings, officer deaths]
The shooting comes at a tense time for both police and civilians.
Police across the country are currently on alert after gunmen ambushed officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, killing eight.
At the same time, police are also under scrutiny after the fatal shootings of two black men earlier this month. Bystanders filmed Baton Rouge police fatally shooting Alton Sterling in the early hours of July 5. Less than 48 hours later, Philando Castile was fatally shot by an officer in Falcon Heights, Minn. His girlfriend streamed the aftermath on Facebook Live.
Like those two incidents, the Monday afternoon altercation was partially captured on camera.
Before the cameras started rolling, the young autistic man wandered away from a North Miami assisted living facility. A manager at the facility told WSVN that the man was “about 23 years old, he’s autistic, he’s nonverbal [and] he’s relatively low-functioning.”
The autistic man sat on the ground, blocking traffic, while he played with a small white toy truck, Napoleon told The Post.
Kinsey, an employee at the facility, went to retrieve him.
Around the same time, someone in the area called 911 and reported seeing a man with a gun threatening to commit suicide, police said.
According to Napoleon, Kinsey was trying to persuade the autistic man to get out of the street when police approached with their rifles raised.
With the Sterling and Castile shootings on his mind, Kinsey laid down on the ground and put his hands in the air.
“I was really more worried about him than myself,” Kinsey told WSVN, referring to the autistic man.
Two bystander videos capture snippets of what happened next.
[After Baton Rouge, a weary fear builds among those who protect and serve]
A video from before the shooting — obtained by Napoleon and shared with The Post — begins with bystanders saying “Look, look, look,” in Spanish.
“Mira, mira, mira,” a man can be heard saying, training his cellphone camera on Kinsey, who is on the ground with his hands up and trying to get the autistic man to do the same.
“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey tells the young man.
“Shut up,” the autistic man shouts. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Kinsey turns his attention to the police.
“Can I get up now?” he asks. “Can I get up?”
As police aim their assault rifles at the men in the street, Kinsey tries to explain to them that they pose no threat.
“All he has is a toy truck in his hand. A toy truck,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video. “I am a behavioral therapist at a group home.
“That’s all it is,” he says, referring to the toy truck. “That’s all it is. There is no need for guns.”
“Let me see your hands,” a cop can be heard shouting at the autistic man. “Get on the ground. Get on the ground.”
The autistic man then begins to make noises, apparently playing with his toy.
“Rinaldo, please be still,” Kinsey tells his patient. “Sit down, Rinaldo. Lay on your stomach.”
The video then cuts out, leaving a critical gap in the footage.
Seconds later, off camera, one of the officers fired his weapon three times.
One of the bullets struck Kinsey near his right knee, exiting his upper thigh.
“My life flashed in front of me,” he told WSVN, adding that his first thought was of his family.
His second thought was one of confusion.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising,” he said. “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No, I just got shot.'”
“Sir, why did you shoot me?” Kinsey recalled asking the officer.
“He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
A second video captures the moments after the shooting, as officers placed the injured Kinsey and the autistic man into handcuffs.
“He was like, ‘Please don’t shoot me,’ ” a bystander can be heard saying on the video. “Why they shot the black boy and not the fat boy?”
“Because the things with the blacks,” another man says.
“I don’t know who’s guilty,” adds what sounds like a woman’s voice.
The aftermath of this Minn. police shooting was live streamed on Facebook. Here's what you need to know. Play Video3:43
Philando Castile, 32, was fatally shot by a police officer at a traffic stop outside St. Paul. His girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter were in the car with him. Reynolds live streamed the aftermath on Facebook. Here's what you need to know. (Monica Akhtar, Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
It was the officers’ reaction after the shooting that upset Kinsey and Napoleon the most.
“They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come,” Kinsey told WSVN. “I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding — I mean bleeding and I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”
“Right now, I am just grateful that he is alive, and he is able to tell his story,” his wife, Joyce, told the TV station.
Kinsey was “dumbfounded” by the shooting, Napoleon said.
“He should recover physically but he is really kind of mentally distraught,” the attorney added. “As you can see in the video, he did everything he thought he had to do and then some … and still got shot.”
Napoleon said his client was on the ground with his hands up, as in the video, when shot.
“Nobody got up or approached” the officers, the attorney said, adding that the fact the officer fired three times shows it was “not an accident.
“The straw that really breaks the camel’s back, that makes it even more frustrating, is that after my client was shot, they handcuffed him and left him on the hot Miami summer pavement for 20 minutes while fire rescue came and while he was bleeding out,” Napoleon said. “But for the grace of God he wouldn’t be with us.”
“That toy truck does not come close to looking like a gun,” he told The Post. “The officers had more than enough time to look and make a determination and not just base it on what they heard on the telephone. They have an obligation to go and look and determine if [reports of an armed man were] right and they had ample opportunity to do so.”
Napoleon said he knew better than most the dangers cops endure on a daily basis.
“You’re talking to someone whose dad was a police officer in the city of Detroit in the ’70s and ’80s,” he said. “I understand it. I had a fear when I was a child of whether or not my father was going to come home.
“But at the end of the day, we can’t use that as an excuse to allow police officers to shoot unarmed individuals,” he said. “Just like the police ask the community to not judge them based on … however many bad apples that are out there. In the same sense, they have to be able to hold themselves to the same standard and not hold the entire [black] community responsible for the incidents that happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge.”
Napoleon said he was already in negotiations with the City of North Miami regarding a possible settlement.
“I have confidence that the city is going to negotiate in good faith and try to resolve this issue,” he said. “At a minimum, we would request that they terminate the officer immediately based on what’s in the video.”
The attorney said he trusted the State Attorney’s Office, which is also investigating, to determine if criminal charges should be filed against the officer.
Napoleon said Kinsey, a father of five, is involved in community efforts to keep youth out of trouble and in school.
“He’s just a solid guy,” he said of his client, who remains hospitalized. “It takes a special individual to work with people with special needs, as this young man did. That shows his character.”
Napoleon said he knew better than most the dangers cops endure on a daily basis.
“You’re talking to someone whose dad was a police officer in the city of Detroit in the ’70s and ’80s,” he said. “I understand it. I had a fear when I was a child of whether or not my father was going to come home.
“But at the end of the day, we can’t use that as an excuse to allow police officers to shoot unarmed individuals,” he said. “Just like the police ask the community to not judge them based on … however many bad apples that are out there. In the same sense, they have to be able to hold themselves to the same standard and not hold the entire [black] community responsible for the incidents that happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge.”
Napoleon said he was already in negotiations with the City of North Miami regarding a possible settlement.
“I have confidence that the city is going to negotiate in good faith and try to resolve this issue,” he said. “At a minimum, we would request that they terminate the officer immediately based on what’s in the video.”
The attorney said he trusted the State Attorney’s Office, which is also investigating, to determine if criminal charges should be filed against the officer.
Napoleon said Kinsey, a father of five, is involved in community efforts to keep youth out of trouble and in school.
“He’s just a solid guy,” he said of his client, who remains hospitalized. “It takes a special individual to work with people with special needs, as this young man did. That shows his character.”
hno:
Damn, those cops, if it happens like they are saying. Cops like that have no business on the force, and their punishment should be MORE than the max. They are trusted to uphold the law, so they should be set to higher standards and laws when broken.
Is there a death penalty for these cops in Florida if this is 100% true of a story?
Is there a death penalty for these cops in Florida if this is 100% true of a story?
Willie, every action causes a reaction.....this didn't start by citizens shooting cops, this started by cops abusing their power, & beating the sh*t out of citizens which was finally caught on video tape after years of abuse.
I will not categorize all cops in.these situations, because there are great cops out there, but the bad ones f**k it up for the good ones, just like criminals make it bad for good citizens.
In this Florida incident, there's absolutely no excuse for this cop to shoot this man.....what was he scared of, a Tonka truck being rolled around by an autistic man? Or the unarmed black therapist yelling out I'm not armed? I understand what you mean about the ambush scenarios, but you can't go around shooting innocent people. I hope this action of the cop doesn't cause a reaction from some radical people shooting cops......but I have this feeling it will, & yes, it is spinning out of control & I don't see an end to it.
