Black therapist with hands up shot by cops while helping patient

Hold on second and I am not trying to be mean to you.

How do you know that the officer that shot this guy is a bad cop? Maybe he is just a bad shot. Ever tried shooting when your heartrate is 220 BPM? How many do you think you would dump off the black at even ten meters?

Maybe he is a bad shot that has a medal of valor for pulling a person from a burning house? None of us know. If you had to be judged, do you want all the evidence or just some of it?

You can tell intent from this video clip? Because intent is the key to prosecution. I am not at all convinced that prosecution is even an option, unless its some type of reckless negligence, again very hard to prove. The civil lawsuit is a surefire payday though and Mr. Kinsey should be compensated for his pain and suffering. He isn’t going to get as much as his attorney thinks, and the reason is below.

It isn’t about what you or any other person perceives the threat to be. It is about what an officer at the scene perceives the threat to be. I didn’t make that up, it’s longstanding established case law (Conner v. Graham).

From the information released so far, the officer was convinced enough that the autistic man was a threat to a person he was sworn to protect, (and had priority over the potential suspect) Mr. Kinsey, the unfortunate recipient of the bullet intended for the autistic man. Mr. Kinsey, bless him, was worried about his charge, however in his desire to protect his charge, he deliberately injected himself into dynamic, uncertain and evolving situation that the police were legally and lawfully summoned to and were in charge of the very second they arrived. Had he listened to the officers to stay away from the autistic man, as difficult and emotional as that would have been, he most likely would have not been shot himself. And this is why his compensation may very well be reduced.

FWIW, I have an autistic child, and I am grateful to God this young man was not shot, for he had no clue what was going on. I am also sorry that Kinsey did get wounded. But that was tragic and unintentional.

None of us know how that officer is exactly feeling right now. I can tell you from experience of working my share of officer involved shootings how officers feel the minutes and hours after a shooting. There ain’t a damn bit of high-fiving going on and no one is happy about pulling the trigger. Initially, the natural response of relief that you are still alive is evident, but that quickly dissipates. Then begins the soul searching, anger at being forced to do something that no rational person wants to do, disbelief, uncertainty of your future, all fashion and form of negative emotions that again, no rational person wants for themselves. Cops shooting people is only glamorous on TV. In real life, guys vomit, cry, curse, lose control of bodily functions, and second guess themselves. You take their gun for evidence, and sometimes they turn the replacement on themselves in a fit of depression. I’ve known cops who lost their will to serve and got the hell out and they were in justified shoots.

I’ll close with this. Every bad cop that has ever been prosecuted was arrested by a good cop.

I have two under belt, not proud of it, just saying it.

The cop might have thought it was a real truck. And after Nice, it’s no wonder he was on edge,

this was not a racist thing, I hope. It seems like a trigger happy cop.

This was wrong - very wrong -- irrespective of the color of the man's skin.

Cops need to be trained better than for this to happen

I agree with you. This victim did nothing wrong - he could have done no more to stop himself being shot other than wearing full-body kevlar.

Cops need to be trained better than for this to happen

The problem *IS* the training. And, I suspect steroids & antidepressants. This really explains a lot:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html?_r=0