**Warning: This video contains material that some viewers may find disturbing due to the graphic nature. The incident is currently under investigation, and police are trying to determine what happened.**
NORTH MIAMI, Florida (WSVN) – A Florida mental health professional, trying to get an upset autistic patient to return to a group home, was shot by police this week.
Video of the incident shows the man with his hands raised as he lays on the ground.
North Miami Police pointed rifles at Charles Kinsey, who was laying in the middle of the road with his hands in the air. Kinsey can be heard in the video telling officers he’s a therapist trying to help a confused autistic man who ran away from a group home.
Kinsey said he remembers the moments before he got shot.
“When I went to the ground, I went to the ground with my hands up, and I am laying there just like this, telling them again there is no need for firearms,” he said. “He is autistic. He has a toy truck in his hand.”
He said he pleaded with officers to back down and tried to calm down his patient.
The incident went on for several minutes.
Kinsey said out of nowhere, a North Miami Police officer shot him.
“When he shot me, it was so surprising,” he said. “I thought it was a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I had my hands in the air. And I’m thinking, ‘I just got shot!’ And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ And his words to me were, ‘I don’t know.'”
North Miami Police said it all started when someone called 911 and said there was a man walking around with a gun threatening suicide Monday. But Kinsey said the gun was a toy truck. The man was the autistic patient.
“I was really more worried about him than I was myself, thinking as long as I have my hands up, they aren’t going to shoot me,” he said. “Wow, was I wrong.”
Kinsey said what police did after he was shot is what upsets him the most.
“They got three sets of handcuffs. They cuff my hands, and they flip me over and I am laying on the concrete like this, and I am bleeding,” he said.
Day in and day out, Kinsey works helping the disabled. He just wants to know why the officer fired.
“Right now, I am just grateful that he is alive and he is telling his story and it didn’t go the opposite way,” said Kinsey’s wife, Joyce.
“Every time I close my eyes, I am getting flashbacks,” Kinsey added.
Police have not said why the officer shot Kinsey. The officer involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave as is department policy.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is assisting in the investigation.
