TheCable

North Miami, Florida, police officers shot an unarmed black man as he reportedly held his hands up in the air while lying on the ground.

The victim, therapist Charles Kinsey, was apparently helping an autistic patient on whom someone called 911 prior to the shooting.

WSVN, a local station, released a cellphone recording of the moments before the shooting on Wednesday evening.

“I’m like this right here,” Kinsey recounted to WSVN, with his arms in the air. “And when he shot me, it was so surprising. 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.’”

The shooting is already drawing widespread attention, with WSVN’s tweet receiving thousands of retweets just hours after it went up.

For the Black Lives Matter movement, the shooting is just another example of the kind of racial disparities in police use of force that have gained a national spotlight in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.

Before the shooting, North Miami police said they received a 911 call about a man walking around with a gun threatening to kill himself. The man turned out to be an autistic 23-year-old man who was holding a toy truck after leaving his group home.

Kinsey tried to help the patient and retrieve him back to the group home. But then cops arrived, aiming rifles at both Kinsey and the patient, telling them to get on the ground.

“When I went to the ground, I went to the ground with my hands up,” Kinsey told WSVN, holding his arms up. “And I am laying there just like this, telling them again there is no need for firearms. He is autistic. He has a toy truck in his hand.”

The cellphone video shows Kinsey lying on the ground, with his arms up, shouting to police, “All he has is a toy truck in his hand. A toy truck. I am a behavior therapist at a group home.”

“I was thinking as long as I have my hands up, they are not going to shoot me.

“I was really more worried about him than myself,” he told WSVN. “I was thinking as long as I have my hands up … they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking — they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong.”

According to WPLG, police officers thought the toy truck was a gun. But it’s not clear why they opened fire, or whether they meant to shoot Kinsey.

Police reportedly shot Kinsey in the leg, although the video cuts out before the shooting. After the shooting, Kinsey said, police cuffed him as he bled.

The North Miami police department has not commented further on the shooting. But the department placed the officer who shot Kinsey on administrative leave, and an investigation is underway with the help of the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office.