Posted on 07/24/2016 10:44:14 AM PDT by Morgana
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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
“He was at point blank range. “
I’ve watched this video over and over. I could see that whoever was filming was close enough that they could see this was a toy that the autistic man was holding. Yes the autistic man seemed to be having some sort of meltdown but the black man was handling it and would have had they let him. The police were called over a man with a gun who was trying to kill himself, not an autistic man who escaped his home and having a meltdown in the street with his therapist. If they can’t tell the difference between a gun and toy truck then God help us we have some real idiot cops.
Criminals have been calling 911 and then shooting the cops who respond. That’s enough to make anyone tense and more likely to miss.
Don’t call 911.
Even if the police officer was a very accomplished pistol shooter, if you look at the angle and the distance he was shooting from that you can see in the video and even if there was a valid concern, the shot should never have been taken. The two officers were taking cover behind utility poles at least 25 yards away. The two suspects were on the ground and next to each other. There was no berm or anything behind them that would stop the bullets.
The chance of missing your mark and hitting an innocent person especially with the ricochets that were no doubt binging off the pavement and ending up who knows how far down the road, were just too great. It does not surprise me at all that he hit the “wrong” guy. It is just dumb luck that he didn't also hit bystanders up to blocks away. But it was his judgment and not his marksmanship that was the real problem.
Someone had called 911 reporting there was a man with a gun trying to kill himself. That is why the police were even out. They came across these two responding to that call. Now mind you one man trying to kill himself with a gun, yet they find an autistic man holding a toy truck and his therapist trying to calm him and they think that is the man trying to kill himself? Meanwhile the man with the gun could be dead and they were going to shoot the autistic man? Is that what they were planning to do to the man who was going to kill himself? Just shoot him dead? Help him kill himself?
You’re right. The officer appears to have had a poor grip on his weapon. When you press the trigger with a weak grip it tends to shift your point of aim a little down and to the left. It can be enough to cause you to completely miss a USPCA target at as little as 10 yards. (Not that I’ve ever done that.)
Did you read my posts?
“But it was his judgment and not his marksmanship that was the real problem. “
This cop could not hit the broad side of a barn.
Yes but that question...is not just for you but for everyone.
And if the cop had had his way, a dead behavior specialists. Just proves one more time that no matter how bad the situation is, involving the police makes it worse.
Uhm, K.
More range time isn’t going to solve the problem....
At that distance you should have easily hit your target...
And it could have been an assault truck also. Perhaps the cop left his eyes at home when he went to work that morning.
No doubt about it, mistakes can happen whenever humans are involved in volatile situations. Should this man be a cop? I don’t know, but it seems that this was an accident.
Well, it did have a fire cannon attached...
Magic bullet defense? “Shooting at the unarmed white guy, but the bullet got caught by the wind and hit the unarmed black guy 10 feet away, instead”
Either the cop is lying, or he’s too lousy a shot to be allowed to handle a handgun. In either event, fire him.
Well, he was laying on his back with his hands in the air. Obviously the cop don’t know the difference between a toy truck and a gun. Draw your own conclusions. The choices are limitless.
I disagree. While some FR posters know that there are good cops and bad cops, there are roughly equal numbers of cop haters and bootlickers that show up on most FR threads.
Where are all the Barney Fife images? FreeRepublicans are slow-on-the-go today.
Stop being a cop hater!!! The cops have a right to shoot anybody anytime, it's all about "Officer Safety" < / sarc
as a group, young black men are dangerous...
they are targeted....sadly, that group has earned the rep....
do I think cops over react?...yes....they've had it drummed into their heads that THEIR personal lives is all that matters, not the victims, not the innocent people watching, let alone the perp....
in the past, didn't the cops try to use their guns as a last resort?....now they reach for it first thing....
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