Another day, another police shooting. A North Miami police officer shot a black caregiver as he laid in the street with his hands up while trying to help his autism patient. Get the latest on the shooting, and find out what Holly Robinson Peete, who has a son with autism, has to say about it inside…
A black unarmed caregiver was laid out in the middle of the street with his hands up when a North Miami police officer shot him as he was trying to help his 23-year-old autism patient. And the shooting has sparked outrage on social media.
Now, the local police union representing the officer is declaring the shooting an accident. According to CNN, the unnamed officer was reportedly trying to shoot the patient, whom he thought posed a danger, but accidentally shot behavior therapist Charles Kinsey in his right leg after two or three shots were fired, said John Rivera, the President of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association.
So this highly trained officer "accidentally" shot the wrong man? Ok.
Luckily, Mr. Kinsey is still alive and able to share his story with the world.
"This wasn't a mistake in the sense that the officer shot the wrong guy or he thought that Kinsey was the bad guy," John Rivera said in a press conference Thursday. "The movement of the white individual made it look like he was going to discharge a fire arm into Mr. Kinsey and the officer discharged trying to strike and stop the white man and unfortunately, he missed the white male and shot Mr. Kinsey by accident."
There’s video of the encounter making rounds online. Check it out below:
"Mr. Kinsey did everything right, let's be real clear about that," Rivera said.
He did everything right and was still shot by police. We can only wonder if the shooting was ruled accidental simply because Mr. Kinsey didn't die and is able to tell his side of what happened.
Mr. Kinsey told reporters after the shooting he was flipped over and handcuffed (which is seen in the video clip) by police after the shooting. The autism patient was also placed in handcuffs. During an interview with a local news station after the shooting from his hospital bed, Mr. Kinsey said he asked the officer why he shot him and the officer responded,"I don't know."
The unidentified officer is no longer on active duty after being placed on administrative leave. He sent out a statement via text message that reads,
"I took this job to save lives and help people. I did what I had to do in a split-second to accomplish that, and hate to hear others paint me as something I'm not."
The incident hits close to home with actress Holly Robinson Peete being that her 18-year-old son RJPeete has autism.
She shared a clip from her reality show “For Peetes Sake” where she and her husband Rodney Peete have a discussion with their son about what he should do when he encounters police.
She captioned,“After watching the situation in Florida, I decided to repost this scene from #ForPeetessake where we had one of many Talks with our son who has autism about navigating law enforcement cues. Kids with autism process differently and that video is my true real life nightmare... I cannot tell you how tearful I was watching 2 unarmed men-one with autism and one his therapist- with guns trained on them... The therapist with arms raised was shot and thankfully not fatally. But WHY???!!! EVERYONE should take issue with this. The Miami police department should accept accountability and then and ONLY then will we feel someone hears us. Despicable.”
Imagine how stressful it is for Holly to see something like this go down knowing it could happen to her own son.
Thoughts?
Photo: Screenshot
