Officer Was Aiming For the Autistic Man, Shot His Unarmed Black Therapist By Accident, Says Miami Police Union Chief

The Miami Police may have refused to answer questions about the shooting of Charles Kinsey, an unarmed black man lying on the ground with his hands up, but the local police union chief has some illuminating explanations.

John Rivera, who leads the Dade County Police Benevolent Association, explained that the police officer shot Kinsey by accident. He was actually aiming for “the white male”—Kinsey’s young autistic patient, whom the cops mistook for a suicidal man with a gun. (In the video taken before the shooting, Kinsey calls him “Rinaldo” while trying to get him to lay on the ground so he wouldn’t be shot by the police.) So what we have here is a cop, who is a terrible shot, who decided that a man holding a toy truck was a threat.

Rivera, who kept referring to Kinsey as “Kinsley,” is quoted by the Miami New Times:

It appeared to the officers that the white male was trying to do harm to Mr. Kinsey. The officers, realizing and believing that there was a firearm — many officers thought the white male had a firearm. Only much later when we’re able to ‘Monday-morning quarterback’ do we find out that it’s a toy.

“I DOUBT the police officer said anything,” wrote Javier Ortiz, head of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, on Facebook. “And, I assure you there is more to this story. Sensationalism at its best.” That’s all for now, but surely that’s not the end of things Ortiz has to tell us. Previously, he justified the fatal police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by saying, “act like a thug and you’ll be treated like one” and called the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling “more than justified.” He also attempted to lead a boycott on Beyoncé over her Super Bowl performance, a boycott his own union called bullshit on.

The state police department is conducting an investigation into the shooting.