Caretaker of autistic man shot by police while trying to defuse situation (VIDEO)
Shot with his hands in the air, therapist Charles Kinsey asked police “Sir, why did you shoot me?” The response from the officer, he says: “I don’t know.”
Cellphone video obtained by WSVN-Channel 7 shows Kinsey on his back in the street with his charge, an autistic adult who Kinsey contends only had a toy truck. Dressed in a yellow shirt and shorts in the Florida heat, Kinsey can be seen with his hands up, reaching for the sky.
North Miami, Florida police wounded Kinsey, a therapist at a group home, during the July 19 incident in an officer-involved shooting.
“I’m like this right here, and when he shot me, it was so surprising,” Kinsey told WSVN. “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! And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Police were responding to a report of a suicidal man with a gun at the assisted living facility (ALF).
“At some point during the on-scene negotiation, one of the responding officers discharged his weapon, striking the employee of the ALF,” reads a statement from the agency. “He was transported to the Ryder Trauma Center with non-life threatening injuries.”
Kinsey is recovering and has retained an attorney.
The North Miami Police Department has only announced that the officer involved in the shooting in on leave pending an investigation by the Miami-Dade State Attorney. Feedback from the public on their social media page has been vehement over the incident.
Meanwhile, #CharlesKinsey is the number one trending hashtag in the nation.
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Source: http://www.guns.com/2016/07/21/caretaker-of-autistic-man-shot-by-police-while-trying-to-defuse-situation-video/
