It is a rare thing when police officers are brought up on charges for shooting civilians, even if it takes nine long months of investigation to come to fruition. Such is the case with Jonathan Aledda, a North Miami police officer who was charged Wednesday with attempted manslaughter and culpable negligence for shooting Charles Kinsey, an unarmed black man who was a caretaker at a home for people with mental disabilities. You may remember this case from July 2016 when Kinsey was attempting to calm Arnaldo Soto, an autistic resident from the home at which he worked. Soto had wandered into the street and Kinsey was attempting to help him back inside.
The autistic man sat down in the street and was playing with a silver toy truck. Passersby thought that may have been a gun and called police, according to the [arrest affidavit].
As armed officers made their way into closer position, Kinsey lay down on the ground with his hands in the air, yelling at police that there was no threat, according to cellphone footage of the incident.
"All he has is a toy truck in his hands. A toy truck,"
Kinsey says in the video. "I am a behavior tech at a group home."
After he laid down and identified himself, it appears that officers were able to confirm that neither Kinsey nor Soto were a threat. From the arrest affidavit, it appears that Aledda was not the closest officer to the scene and was 152 feet away when he shot Kinsey.
One officer about 15-20 feet away heard Kinsey's yelling and said over the radio to "use caution" because "the person advised that it's a toy." A minute later, that officer said over the radio that he had a visual and that the item did not appear to be a firearm.
Shortly after that, Aledda shot three times, according to the affidavit. [...]
Neither Kinsey nor the autistic man had exhibited any new behaviors when Aledda fired, according to the affidavit. Several officers said they did not know where the shots had come from until later.
Each time something like this happens we go through endless rounds of debate, and the usual defense of the police pops up. Folks will say things like “cops only have an instant to react;” “we don’t know the full story;” “police are innocent until proven guilty;” etc. All that is true. But Kinsey did everything people say you are supposed to do in these cases—and he still got shot. He immediately identified himself. He laid down on the ground with his hands up. He did not argue. He did not have a weapon. And even Aledda himself seemed not to be sure why he shot Kinsey in the first place.
The shooting was first covered by CNN affiliate
WSVN, which interviewed Kinsey at his hospital bed. [...]
"When he shot me, it was so surprising, it was like a mosquito bite," he said. "I said, 'Sir, why did you shoot me?' His words to me, he said, 'I don't know.'"
Even more incredibly, the police union representing Aledda says that he was not aiming for Kinsey but instead was aiming for Soto, the autistic man, with the toy firetruck! Its as if there is literally nothing you can do that will protect you from the police. And that is incredibly scary. If history is any indication, juries tend to not to convict police officers in these cases. We will all be certainly watching and waiting—knowing that just as police officers put their lives on the line, our lives are on the line, too.