Hilton Napoleon / Via miamiherald.com
A Miami caretaker who had been trying to retrieve his patient was shot in the leg by police while he was lying on his back with his hands in the air.
Video obtained by the Miami Herald shows Charles Kinsey, 47, talking to a North Miami police officer on Monday while a man was playing with a white toy truck next to him.
According to a press release by the City of North Miami Police Department, officers received a call about an armed male threatening suicide.
When they arrived, they found Kinsey and his 23-year-old patient, who has autism, on the ground in the middle of the road. The patient was sitting down while Kinsey was on his back with his hands up.
“Can I get up, sir? Can I get up?” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video. “I am a behavior therapist in a group home. There’s no need for guns.”
He can also be heard talking to his patient, asking him to “please be still.”
The video cuts out during the moment police shot Kinsey in the leg, but a short clip recorded immediately afterwards shows officers flipping Kinsey onto his stomach, patting him down, and placing him in handcuffs.
Police said Kinsey was transported to the Ryder Trauma Center, where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Kinsey told local news station WVSN that the gunshot “was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, ‘I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No I just got shot!’”
He said he asked the officer why he shot him, “and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.'”
Kinsey’s attorney, Hilton Napoleon, told the Miami Herald that he was in the middle of negotiating a settlement with the city.
“They realize this was something inappropriate regarding the shooting,” he said. “If police departments come out more and admit fault, that would probably go a long way.”
Kinsey said he was initially more worried about his patient than himself during the police encounter and was trying to keep the situation under control.
“I was thinking as long as I have my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me,” he said.
BuzzFeed News has reached out to the North Miami Police Department and Napoleon for more information.
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