‘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.”