Yet another police shooting has the Hip Hop community crying foul.
Charles Kinsey was reportedly shot in the leg by police in Miami on Monday (July 18) while lying on the ground with his hands in the air. Kinsey is a behavioral therapist who was supervising an autistic man. Police arrived at the location after receiving a report that a man had a gun and was threatening suicide, according to WSVN.
North Miami Police Department held a press conference Thursday to address the shooting, saying no gun was found on the scene. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has taken over the investigation and the state attorney’s office is also looking into the case.
“Bringing in an outside agency shows our commitment to transparency and objectivity in a very sensitive matter,” Chief Gary C. Eugene says.
The moments before the shot was fired were captured on video. Kinsey is shown lying on the ground with his hands in the air next to a man sitting cross-legged with an item at his feet.
“All he has is a toy truck, a toy truck. I’m a behavior therapist at a group home,” Kinsey can be heard saying to the officers.
He says that he told the officers he was unarmed and really did not think his life was in danger, but was more concerned about his patient.
“I was really more worried about him than myself because I know as long as I got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me,” he says. “This is what I’m thinking, ‘They’re not going to shoot me.’ Wow was I wrong.”
The actual shooting is not captured in the video, but Kinsey insists he had his hands up the entire time. The officers came up to Kinsey after shooting him, patted him down and handcuffed him.
“When he hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air and I know I just got shot. I’m like, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know,'” he says.
Kinsey’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon, expresses frustration with how his client was treated.
“There’s no justification for shooting an unarmed person who’s talking to you and telling you that they don’t have a gun and they’re a mental health counselor,” he says.
“My life flashed right in front of me,” Kinsey says of the shooting. “When he hit me, the first thing I’m thinking, I’m thinking about my family.”
Kinsey’s wife was at Jackson Memorial Hospital with him at the time of the interview.
Many took to Twitter to express their outrage at the incident.
This comes weeks after video of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were shot and killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Falcon Heights, Minnesota respectively. Many celebrities came together to create the #23Ways film documenting the lives of 23 Black men and women who lost their lives to senseless violence.
HHDX forgot to state the obvious. I will help. HE WAS BLACK!!
#BLACKLEGSMATTER
Keep up with this race baiting bullshit, and good old Trump will land in the whitehouse. Then you will have a proper racist using the NATIONAL GUARD to shoot your black asses. They will shoot Mexicans too. Probably more so than blacks. by then the “all lives matter” movement will have been squashed for not being PC or race baiting enough. I laugh. Hahahahahaha
#BLACKLEGSMATTER is trending.
The police are murdering innocent Martians that illegally have guns on them…
damn in america is suicide by cop so easy. i wish i was dead.
Just don’t do what the cops say to do when the confront you. Wish granted…
More pooelices die e openno not hear thatno happenhappene america week very week cop him ddie no no
Another example of texting while driving a NY taxi cab. Try not to kill anyone while driving Mo. Your post is not English by the way. No one understands you…
Still saying that #BLACKLEGSMATTER. That’s real talk.
If he was white the racist bullet wouldn’t of done hurted his leg like that’s…
I wonder what kind of excuse a white racist person would say about this. Cuz they always have an excuse when a black person is shot n killed. #FXCKTHEPOLICE4LIFE
It would be helpful if the numbers warranted this reaction … meaning the death rate by race and race vs race violence … you can research it yourself but I’ll save you the trouble … they don’t … not to make about race at least … 100% all for it if the fight is against authoritarianism or the aristocracy … and don’t say the numbers and facts matter if you care about being right … if all you want to do is be emotional or virtue signal or even if it’s just because your mundane existence is crying out for you to actually matter … then go ahead … but just know you are wrong
My only problem is nobody’s providing context with these numbers. How many whites were handcuffed and choked to death? Were some of them resting in their homes and cops broke in and killed them? Were some of them laying down with hands in the air like this man and still, apparently, shot? Until we can break it down along those lines and really compare them, then the numbers are just that, numbers, with zero context. Police brutality is a very specific issue, it’s not black on black violence, that’s an entirely separate issue and they BOTH need addressed….separately….
Cause of death doesn’t matter … fact is more white people are killed by police officers a year … more white people are killed by black people a year … how do these insanely relevant and important facts not matter???? But sure … WHITE people are the devils and all of them deserve to die (as so many of the comments on here suggest) Black people have been socially engineered to harbor this hate despite the facts … and as white people stand side by side in these protests (just like always) just be ready to do the same for them when the time comes
It absolutely matters because these aren’t armed, dangerous black men this keeps happening to, and I want to make sure those whites who were killed by police fall under that same umbrella. Otherwise there isn’t a comparison between the two…
Since you want to talk about facts and numbers… Whites make up at least 60% of the population of this country but about 36% of police shootings. Blacks on the other hand make up about 13% of the population but 23% of police shootings. The numbers for white victims of police shootings have dropped over the last few years while black victims have remained steady. It doesn’t make sense to talk about raw numbers when one group outnumbers another so drastically.