196

The best part of the Charles Kinsey one in particular is that Kinsey was working with an autistic adult who was having a breakdown. He was sitting in an intersection, holding a toy firetruck and blocking traffic. Fearing that the police would choose to mistake the man's toy firetruck for a gun, Kinsey stayed with the man and explained to police that it was a toy truck and not a gun. In order to assure officers that he was no threat, Kinsey was lying on his back with his hands in the air. A police officer then shot Kinsey. A different officer asked the shooter why he shot Kinsey, and the shooter replied, and I swear to you this is an exact quote, "I don't know." Not being able to articulate what, if anything, Kinsey did wrong did not stop police from handcuffing him and leaving him without medical care for 20 minutes as he bled from his gunshot wound. The officer was convicted of culpable negligence and ordered by a court to serve 5 months' probation and write an essay about policing. That conviction was overturned on appeal. The police union representing the officer explained that, despite police having been informed by witnesses that the autistic adult was holding a toy truck and confirming themselves using binoculars that it was indeed a toy truck, that the shooter was aiming for the autistic man holding the toy truck and was trying to save Kinsey's life, despite the fact that the danger existed solely in the shooter's head.

The people of Miami Dade county, having done nothing wrong, were forced to pay Kinsey an undisclosed sum.