Florida police shoot black man lying down with arms in air
Video shows therapist moments before he was wounded by police marksman while trying to get his autistic patient to comply with officers
Charles Kinsey, left, lies in street with his arms raised before a police officer shoots. Kinsey’s patient is sitting up next to him. Photograph: WSVN 7 News
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.
Kinsey, who is black, lay down and put his hands up while trying to get his patient to comply. An officer fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg, Cuevas said. No weapon was found on either Kinsey or his patient.
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.
Charles Kinsey, left, lies in street with his arms raised before a police officer shoots. Kinsey’s patient is sitting up next to him. Photograph: WSVN 7 News
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.
Kinsey, who is black, lay down and put his hands up while trying to get his patient to comply. An officer fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg, Cuevas said. No weapon was found on either Kinsey or his patient.
WATCH: unarmed man has hands in the air before N. Miami police shoot him. He was helping autistic patient @wsvn
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.
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