An unarmed Miami-area man trying to calm his autistic patient was shot in the leg by police even though he had his hands up, he said Wednesday.
Police in North Miami, Fla., told WSVN-TV officers responded Monday to a 911 call reporting a man with a gun threatening to commit suicide. Yet Charles Kinsey, a behavioral therapist, told the TV station the witness and later the police may have mistook the autistic man’s toy truck for a gun.
The patient had run away from a group home in the Miami suburb. Cellphone video showed Kinsey lying on the ground and trying to calm the patient even as officers pointed their guns at them.
“I’m going to the ground, just like this with my hands up. And I’m laying down here just like this. And I’m telling him again, 'Sir, there’s no need for firearms. I’m unarmed, this is an autistic guy. He has a toy truck in his hand,’” Kinsey told WSVN.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising. It was like a mosquito bite. And when he hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air. I said, ‘You know, I just got shot.’ And I’m saying to them, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ And his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Yet the officer handcuffed him momentarily and flipped him over on the concrete at NE 127th St. and NE 14th Ave., Kinsey said. He was later taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
He could be heard in the video footage of the shooting trying to explain the situation.
"All he has is a toy truck. A toy truck. I'm a behavior therapist at a group home," Kinsey said then turned to speak to the patient. "Rinaldo, please be still, Rinaldo. Sit down, Rinaldo. Lay on your stomach."
Officials in the North Miami Police Department placed the officer who shot him on administrative leave as they investigate the shooting, WPLG-TV reported. The local state attorney’s office has joined the investigation.
Representatives for the department didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday night.
Kinsey’s wife Joyce told WSVN she’s just glad he is alive and able to tell the story of what happened to him. Kinsey said he was suffering flashbacks to the shooting “every time I close my eyes” and had only wanted to help his patient.
“I was really more worried about him than myself, because as long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me,” Kinsey said. “This is what I’m thinking, ‘They’re not going to shoot me.’ Wow, was I wrong.”
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