Miami Police Shoot Unarmed Black Man Caring For Autistic Patient

On Monday afternoon, North Miami police officers responded to 911 call asserting that a man was in the street holding a gun and threatening to kill himself. When they arrived on the scene, they found a 23-year-old autistic man holding a toy truck who had wandered outside a nearby mental healthy center his 47-year-old caretaker, Charles Kinsey.

Kinsey obeyed police orders to lie down. He raised his hands his hands in the air and urged his patient to do the same. Kinsey assured the cops that he and his patient were both unarmed and pleaded for them not to fire. When the patient remained sitting cross-legged, an officer opened fire with his assault rifle, striking Kinsey once in the leg. Kinsey told reporters that when he asked the officer why he had shot him, the cop responded, “I don’t know.”

Kinsey was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. “He throws his hands up in the air and says, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ They say lie on the ground, so he does,” Kinsey’s attorney Hilton Napoleon said Wednesday. “He’s on his back with his hands in the air trying to convince the other guy to lie down. It doesn’t make any sense.”