Hands Up, Don't Shoot - "I Missed"

[TheMediator]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/us/mia...lved-shooting/

The police shooting of an African-American caregiver, who was lying in the street trying to help an autism patient, was accidental, according to the local police union representing the North Miami officer.
The officer had intended to shoot the patient, whom he thought posed a danger, but accidentally shot the caregiver instead, said John Rivera, the President of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association.

Read the latest details on the shooting investigation
Charles Kinsey, a behavior therapist, was shot Monday by police -- an incident which has sparked outrage. Footage released by Kinsey's attorney showed his client lying on the ground holding both hands in the air, next to a 23-year-old man with autism.
Rivera offered an explanation Thursday, saying that the police officer opened fire because he thought the white individual, whom they later learned is a man with autism, was going to harm Kinsey.
"This wasn't a mistake in the sense that the officer shot the wrong guy or he thought that Kinsey was the bad guy," he 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."
Rivera said that the video footage of the incident was "being portrayed poorly."
Kinsey is hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his right leg after two or three shots were fired, according to his attorney.
"Mr. Kinsey did everything right, let's be real clear about that," Rivera said. He said that the police officer involved in the shooting "wishes nothing but the best for Mr. Kinsey and the officer is praying for his speedy recovery as are we."
Kinsey told CNN affiliate WSVN that after the shooting, he was flipped over and handcuffed. A video released by the attorney showed Kinsey lying in the road, on his stomach and handcuffed. Both men were seen flat on the ground with two officers standing near them. According to his attorney Hilton Napoleon II, Kinsey was on the ground for 20 minutes before an ambulance arrived.
North Miami police said the officer opened fire after attempting to negotiate. Kinsey and his attorney said that the police explanation doesn't add up. State authorities said they're investigating the incident.
The unidentified officer has been placed on administrative leave and he issued a statement in form of a text message, which was read aloud to the media by Rivera.
"I took this job to save lives and help people," according to the officer's text statement. "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."

[Cheze]

his attempt to handcuff the the white guy and turn him facedown on the ground also apparently struck the wrong target by accident

[Zoranon]

So we have an officer that:

A) Mistakes a toy truck for a gun and starts panic shooting. Ie is a coward.

B) Is a terrible shot, missing with 2 and hitting someone else with the last one.

C) Handcuffs the victim he just shot a delays calling for an ambulance while doing so.

D) Is in complete denial. "I did what I had to do"? I did not realise police had to shoot people who were no threat whatsoever.

In short, this police officer should not only be fired immediately but also imprisoned.

[akris15]

I have a feeling this officer is gonna be the one who falls on the sword for all the other previous situations to put case law on the books. This was one of those situations where anything but "we F***ed up" is not the correct answer.

[Mister Cheese]

I fail to see how his statement makes the situation better.

[Jotaux]

So he shot the innocent guy while trying to shoot the other innocent guy?

Also I laughed at him stopping the autistic guy from shooting Charles Kinsey by shooting Charles Kinsey first.

[Azadina]

So we have an officer that:

A) Mistakes a toy truck for a gun and starts panic shooting. Ie is a coward.

B) Is a terrible shot, missing with 2 and hitting someone else with the last one.

C) Handcuffs the victim he just shot a delays calling for an ambulance while doing so.

D) Is in complete denial. "I did what I had to do"? I did not realise police had to shoot people who were no threat whatsoever.

In short, this police officer should not only be fired immediately but also imprisoned.

He should face trial and prison sentence, definitely.

[Christan]

So he shot the innocent guy while trying to shoot the other innocent guy?

Also I laughed at him stopping the autistic guy from shooting Charles Kinsey by shooting Charles Kinsey first.

yeah...he sure got one upped.
really though...it's just...wrong the caregiver was not a hostage.
no one mentions if the autistic person had a weapon? doubt it though... (seems like a convenient fact media generally leaves out to get more viewers / more shock value still...doubt he was armed)

if two unarmed people are in a scuffle it's suddenly okay to use lethal force?
i dont give a flying ---- what was going through that officers head, he was absolutely in the wrong, it doesn't matter if he 'missed'(used lethal force when there was no need)
or 'unfortunately shot the wrong person' = bad aim and trigger happy, trying to downplay manslaughter is bad form, he freaking killed an innocent person, saying a murder is unfortunate is like telling someone with terminal cancer, "man, that's unfortunate, why not just sleep it off?" it's idiocy.

almost as bad as the guy getting shot in his own car after being pulled over and telling the cop he has a carry license, then being asked for ID, and when he goes to get his wallet the cop kills him, and his GF/daughter were in the car with him...

tbh...i think police departments are more worried about being sued than justice itself. they will let their own get away with murder if it prevents their precinct from being sued, as long as they admit no wrong-doing, there's less for a civil lawsuit to go after. so...sickening...

[Zeek Daniels]

The police handling this situation are pretty stupid. For one thing, the black guy was on his back with both hands raised. He is not a threat.

The other guy is sitting down with somthing in his hand. Now it doesnt take a genius to figure out that you need to figure out what exactly is in the other guys hand.

Now the black guy said he yelled out that it was a toy truck. Are the officers blind? Do they not know what a gun looks like? Are they so afraid of one guy with a small fire arm that they cant slowly approach until one of them has good enough eyesight to spot the toy car? Dont they have binoculars in their vehicle?

This situation is just stupid. If one give is giving himself up, and telling you the situation and you completely ignore him. Thats on you. The officers in charge need to be suspended or fired. Thats not how you handle that situation when the video clearly shows communication from the guy that got shot to the police.

[Jotaux]

no one mentions if the autistic person had a weapon? doubt it though... (seems like a convenient fact media generally leaves out to get more viewers / more shock value still...doubt he was armed)

He had a toy firetruck.

[Sinyc]

A) Mistakes a toy truck for a gun and starts panic shooting. Ie is a coward.

I wouldn't call him a coward, and in no way shape or form am I condoning his actions... but the 911 caller told dispatch that one of the men had a gun and was suicidal.
That false report immediately puts the cops on HIGH ALERT (with good reason).

It's very easy to say AFTER the fact that it was just a toy or whatever.. in the heat of the moment a 1 second hesitation means you die and don't get to go home to post on the Internet or see your family, etc.

The cop was obviously poorly trained because he did not appear to assess the situation at all. Had he done that, he would have seen there was no threat and no one gets shot/there is no story.

[eschatological]

I wouldn't call him a coward, and in no way shape or form am I condoning his actions... but the 911 caller told dispatch that one of the men had a gun and was suicidal.
That false report immediately puts the cops on HIGH ALERT (with good reason).

It's very easy to say AFTER the fact that it was just a toy or whatever.. in the heat of the moment a 1 second hesitation means you die and don't get to go home to post on the Internet or see your family, etc.

The cop was obviously poorly trained because he did not appear to assess the situation at all. Had he done that, he would have seen there was no threat and no one gets shot/there is no story.

I studied law, and worked as an intern for a prosecutor's office......before graduating and deciding to be a public defender. 911 calls don't even amount to probable cause without a high degree of specificity. "He has a gun" is something so many people say and often isn't true.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I wonder, did this shit just never happen a few years ago?
I honestly would like to see the stats.
It seems like EVERYONE and their brother is on this topic.

Why is it such a big deal now, but it wasn't 3 years ago?
It makes it hard to me to care, unless you can show me proof that suddenly police incompetency and racial coincidence has risen thousands of percent in the last year or so.

[Xeones]

Last I saw the cop was suspended without pay (usually they still get paid) for falsifying his report.

[Drutt]

I wonder, did this shit just never happen a few years ago?
I honestly would like to see the stats.
It seems like EVERYONE and their brother is on this topic.

Why is it such a big deal now, but it wasn't 3 years ago?
It makes it hard to me to care, unless you can show me proof that suddenly police incompetency and racial coincidence has risen thousands of percent in the last year or so.

It's only recently that members of the public have taken to regularly recording this sort of thing and spreading it on social media.

I doubt things are any worse than they used to be, we're just finally seeing reality for the first time and it isn't what any of us thought it was.

It's very easy to say AFTER the fact that it was just a toy or whatever.. in the heat of the moment a 1 second hesitation means you die and don't get to go home to post on the Internet or see your family, etc.

The problem with applying this line of thinking to this particular situation is that the officer said he shot the wrong target by accident, but then undermines his own credibility by handcuffing the same person he said he shot by accident.

Sometimes people do get things wrong in the heat of the moment, and understandably so. When someone is lying down in the road next to the suspect and tells you it's a patient of theirs holding a toy truck, however, the circumstances change significantly. And that's without the officer "accidentally" shooting someone.

[Cheze]

You can already kinda see the retroactive self-justification in the union's statement

if this happened before the age of cell phone cameras we'd already have heard about how Mr. Kinsey was behaving in a threatening manner, appeared to be drawing a weapon, etc.

[Sinyc]

I studied law, and worked as an intern for a prosecutor's office......before graduating and deciding to be a public defender. 911 calls don't even amount to probable cause without a high degree of specificity. "He has a gun" is something so many people say and often isn't true.

I will take that as most likely true. That said, humans will be humans. If I were a cop and I heard dispatch say someone has a gun I am immediately put on alert. I still expected the cop to at least do some discovery before firing at anyone, no matter what. So he is certainly in the wrong.

This is the problem I have with the "See something, say something" world we live in. The people who do say something usually do ZERO discovery before reporting something false and making the situation more hostile than it needs to be.

[Felya]

You can already kinda see the retroactive self-justification in the union's statement

if this happened before the age of cell phone cameras we'd already have heard about how Mr. Kinsey was behaving in a threatening manner, appeared to be drawing a weapon, etc.

You forgot 'body cam fell off'...

[eschatological]

I will take that as most likely true. That said, humans will be humans. If I were a cop and I heard dispatch say someone has a gun I am immediately put on alert. I still expected the cop to at least do some discovery before firing at anyone, no matter what. So he is certainly in the wrong.

This is the problem I have with the "See something, say something" world we live in. The people who do say something usually do ZERO discovery before reporting something false and making the situation more hostile than it needs to be.

The cops in this case said "They were negotiating with the 'suspect' and the negotiations broke down." There's no real reporting on the actual timetable of these events, but the therapist who was shot suggested some passage of time, enough that he communicated that the kid had autism, was holding a toy truck, and he was a therapist trying to calm him down. The implication was that this wasn't a snap decision, but a decision made after they chose to ignore the information presented to them, to not verify the presence of a gun, and "shoot first, ask questions later." It's these types of decisions that lead people to say that the police have undertaken an "Us vs. Them" mentality, which is the basis of all the outrage over police shootings lately.

Ultimately, I think this case, without the therapist, would have resulted in an autistic kid getting shot and possibly killed by the cops.

- - - Updated - - -

I wonder, did this shit just never happen a few years ago?
I honestly would like to see the stats.
It seems like EVERYONE and their brother is on this topic.

Why is it such a big deal now, but it wasn't 3 years ago?
It makes it hard to me to care, unless you can show me proof that suddenly police incompetency and racial coincidence has risen thousands of percent in the last year or so.

NWA was saying it 30 years ago, it's just that no one believed them because they were "hood thugs." Rodney King was written as a one-off, and only rose to national attention because there was actual video coverage of it.

Now, with social media being so prevalent, there's an indication that this is an actual, not made up problem. That's why it's taken off in the past 3 years.

[Cheze]

Seriously, do people think the whole Rodney King business was the result of a one-time case of a tweaker getting beat by police?

Not that they were in the right anyway, but it probably passes unnoticed if the LAPD did not have a notably terrible record w/r/t the black community. Rodney King was just the first time media allowed a critical mass of people to all become aware of an instance of police abuse more or less at the same time

(Seriously go read about what their rampart division had going at that time; LAPD were awful even by contemporary standards)