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NORTH MIAMI, Fla. (AP) — When Thomas Matthews noticed North Miami police officers responding to a commotion a block from his usual outdoor sitting spot, he grabbed his binoculars and saw a middle-aged black man and a younger autistic man sitting in an intersection.

The officers, he said, grabbed rifles from the patrol cars’ trunks and crept toward the men. The autistic man was holding something in his hand. Peering through his binoculars, he could see the object was a toy truck. Matthews says he tried to tell an officer who had stayed behind for crowd control, but she told him to back up.

Soon, three shots rang out and therapist Charles Kinsey, who had been trying to coax his 27-year-old autistic client back to a nearby facility, was wounded in the leg. The shooting drew national attention because much of what happened before the shooting was captured on video.

“If she would have told the other officers, maybe they wouldn’t have shot,” said Matthews, a 73-year-old African-American. He ran a North Miami flower shop before retiring and has lived in the area for years. He said he has never had a problem with North Miami police.

“But I guess with all the shootings that are going on, they are nervous and shook up,” Matthews said.

Monday’s shooting comes amid weeks of violence involving police. Five officers were killed in Dallas two weeks ago and three law enforcement officers were gunned down Sunday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Before those shootings, a black man, Alton Sterling, 37, was fatally shot during a scuffle with two white officers at a convenience store. In Minnesota, 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was also black, was shot to death during a traffic stop. Cellphone videos captured Sterling’s killing and the aftermath of Castile’s shooting, prompting nationwide protests over the treatment of blacks by police.

At a news conference Thursday, North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said the investigation has been turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney’s office. He called it a “very sensitive matter” and promised a transparent investigation, but refused to identify the officer or answer reporters’ questions. Eugene, a Haitian-American with 30 years of South Florida police experience, just became chief last week.

“I realize there are many questions about what happened on Monday night. You have questions, the community has questions, we as a city, we as a member of this police department and I also have questions,” he said. “I assure you we will get all the answers.”

During a Thursday news conference, John Rivera, who runs Miami-Dade County’s police union, said the officer believed Kinsey’s patient was armed, and the officer was trying to shoot the patient in an attempt to save Kinsey’s life.

Nancy Abudu, the American Civil Liberties Union’s legal director in Florida, said her group hasn’t received any brutality complaints about the North Miami police or about any questionable shootings before this week’s.

Kinsey’s attorney, Hilton Napoleon II, said he is already talking to North Miami city officials about a monetary settlement for his client, who is married with five children. City officials did not return a phone call seeking confirmation.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch told reporters the Justice Department is aware of the shooting and working with local law enforcement to gather all of the facts and to decide how to proceed.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who represents the area, said she was in shock.

“From what I saw, he was lying on the ground with his hands up. Freezing. But he was still shot,” said Wilson, a Democrat.

“This is not typical of North Miami,” she said. “We’re not accustomed to this tension. … This cannot happen again.”

The chief said officers responded after getting a 911 call about a man with a gun threatening to kill himself, and the officers arrived “with that threat in mind” — but no gun was recovered.

Cellphone video shows Kinsey lying on the ground with his arms raised, talking to his patient and police throughout the standoff with officers, who appeared to have them surrounded.

“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking. They’re not going to shoot me,” he told WSVN-TV (http://bit.ly/2ac7zm1) from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. “Wow, was I wrong.”

The video does not show the moment of the shooting. Napoleon said there was about a two-minute gap in which the person who shot the video had switched off, thinking nothing more noteworthy would happen. It then briefly shows the aftermath of the shooting. He would not say who gave him the video.

“Lay down on your stomach,” Kinsey says to his patient in the video, which was shot from about 30 feet away and provided to the Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2ahReMa). “Shut up!” responds the patient, who is sitting cross-legged in the road.

Kinsey said he was more worried about his patient than himself.

“I’m telling them again, ‘Sir, there is no need for firearms. I’m unarmed, he’s an autistic guy. He got a toy truck in his hand,” Kinsey said.

An officer later fired three times, striking Kinsey in the leg, assistant police chief Neal Cuevas told the newspaper.

Napoleon said officers handcuffed Kinsey and left him lying in the street on his stomach for 20 minutes without rendering first aid.

After the shooting, Kinsey said he asked an officer why he was shot and the officer said “I don’t know.”

An unarmed therapist was shot in Miami by cop while trying to rescue an Autistic patient who wandered in the street.

KTLA.com reports:

When a 23-year-old autistic man carrying a toy truck wandered from a mental health center out into the street Monday, a worker there named Charles Kinsey went to retrieve him.

A few minutes later the autistic man was still sitting cross-legged blocking the roadway while playing with the small, rectangular white toy. And Kinsey was prone on the ground next to him — a bullet from an assault rifle fired by a police officer having struck his leg.

“He throws his hands up in the air and says, ‘Don’t shoot me.’ They say lie on the ground, so he does,” Kinsey’s attorney Hilton Napoleon said Wednesday. “He’s on his back with his hands in the air trying to convince the other guy to lie down. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Cellphone video footage obtained by Napoleon clearly shows the heavy-set autistic man sitting and playing with his toy while Kinsey, dressed in a yellow shirt and shorts, obeys police orders to lie down on his back.

The video, taken before the officer fired his weapon, shows Kinsey on his back with his hands in the air telling police he didn’t have a weapon and asking them not to fire. At one point the autistic man appears to yell at Kinsey to shut up. A second brief video shows officers who are carrying rifles physically patting down Kinsey and the autistic man while they are lying on the ground.

In an interview with WSVN-Channel 7, Kinsey said that after he was shot, officers approached and flipped him over and handcuffed him.

“Sir, there’s no need for firearms,” Kinsey told the news station he said to police before he was shot. “It was so surprising. It was like a mosquito bite.”

Kinsey said when he asked the officer why he fired his weapon, the cop responded, “I don’t know.”

By Wednesday, North Miami police hadn’t offered much of an explanation. Assistant Police Chief Neal Cuevas said the investigation has been turned over to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

Cuevas said officers received a 911 call indicating a man was in the street with a gun threatening to kill himself. They responded to Northeast 127th Street and about 14th Avenue and began barking orders. When the autistic man didn’t comply, an officer fired three times, striking Kinsey once in the leg. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Cuevas said he didn’t know who the officer was aiming at when he struck Kinsey. The offier’s name hasn’t been released.

In a prepared statement, North Miami police spokeswoman Natalie Buissereth said “arriving officers attempted to negotiate with the two men on the scene, one of whom was later identified as suffering from autism… At some point during the on-scene negotiation, one of the responding officers discharged his weapon.”

Police still hadn’t released any paperwork or the incident report of the shooting by Wednesday. There is no indication that a weapon of any kind was found. The officer who fired his weapon has been placed on administrative leave, as is standard, for at least a week.

Kinsey, 47, who’s worked at MacTown Panther Group Homes for a little over a year, wasn’t badly injured and is expected to be home by Thursday.

By Wednesday, Napoleon said he was already negotiating a possible settlement with the city of North Miami.

“They realize this was something inappropriate regarding the shooting,” he said. “If police departments come out more and admit fault, that would probably go a long way,” toward improving relations with the public, he said.

Still, the incident highlights the inherent dangers faced by police and the public in the wake of deadly police shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge in which gunmen killed eight officers and wounded 10 others.

In dealing with the mentally ill, experts say, those dangers only multiply.

“I was more worried about him than myself,” Kinsey told Channel 7 of the autistic man, whose name hasn’t been released.

Said his wife Joyce Kinsey: “I’m just grateful he’s alive and able to tell his story.”

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(Photo Source: KTLA)