Sorry about that bullet, man. I was aiming for the autistic guy.
A Florida cop who wounded an unarmed black therapist was actually trying to shoot the man’s patient, a union official said Thursday.
The unidentified North Miami police officer thought Charles Kinsey — who was lying on his back with his arms in the air — was in danger, his union chief said. The patient, who escaped from MACtown Inc., a nearby group home where Kinsey works, had a toy in his hand.
“All he has is a toy truck, a toy truck,” Kinsey told the cop Monday, according to video obtained by his lawyer. “I am a behavior therapist at a group home.”
Kinsey, while on his back and on the ground, put his arms in the air to show police he wasn’t armed. The cop fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg. The 23-year-old patient, who was on the ground sitting next to Kinsey, was not hurt.
“I was more worried about him than myself,” Kinsey, 47, told WSVN-TV in Miami.
Cell phone video released by Kinsey’s lawyer shows the caretaker urging the patient to “please be still . . . get down . . . lay on your stomach.”
The man rocked back and forth a few times before the cop fired. No video has surfaced of the actual shooting.
Despite the union’s claims that Kinsey was accidentally wounded, he was still handcuffed while facedown on the ground after the shooting.
North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said the investigation has been turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the office of the state’s attorney. The officer, whose name has not been released, could face charges if his actions are deemed criminal.
“I took this job to save lives and help people,” the cop said Thursday in a statement released by the union. “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.”
Eugene called it a “very sensitive matter” and promised a transparent investigation. But he refused to identify the officer.
“You have questions, the community has questions, we as a city, we as a member of this police department and I also have questions,” he said. “I assure you we will get all the answers.”
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Thursday the Justice Department had launched an inquiry into the shooting.
The officer, currently on administrative leave, said he regrets the incident and wishes Kinsey a speedy recovery, the union said.
Kinsey, who has been recuperating in a local hospital, says that he lay on his back on the street and put his arms in the air to show his hands were empty.
“I’m going to the ground, just like this with my hands up,” he told a local news station from his hospital room as he raised his arms above his head.
“And I’m telling him again, ‘Sir, there’s no need for firearms. I’m unarmed. This is an autistic guy, He has a toy truck in his hand.'”
But the cops — who had drawn their weapons — didn’t put them away, even when Kinsey shouted that he was a therapist who worked at the nearby group home.
He also shouted warnings that his patient was autistic and held a toy — not a gun.
“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me,” Kinsey said. “This is what I’m thinking: ‘They’re not going to shoot me.’ Wow, was I wrong.”
Police said the cop was responding to a 911 call just after 5 p.m. about an armed man threatening suicide.
“I want to make it clear,” Eugene said. “There was no gun recovered.”
The shooting comes amid weeks of violence involving police.
Five officers were killed in Dallas two weeks ago and three law enforcement officers were gunned down Sunday in Baton Rouge, La.
Before those shootings, a black man, Alton Sterling, 37, was fatally shot during a scuffle with two white officers at a convenience store.
In Minnesota, 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was also black, was shot to death during a traffic stop.
Cellphone videos captured Sterling’s killing and aftermath of Castile’s shooting, prompting nationwide protests over the treatment of blacks by police.
With News Wire Services