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Hands Up And They’ll Shoot: The Charles Kinsey Story

Via miamiherald.com
Via miamiherald.com

It’s been only a few weeks since the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and now we have yet another shooting of an innocent black man. It seems that even after tragedy, the long and looming shadow of police brutality seems to always rear its head into the lives of blacks and other minorities. However, thankfully, this time the victim survived. The victim was 47-year-old behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey. Kinsey works as a caretaker at MacTown Panther Group Homes in North Miami. The events that took place started on July 20, 2016, when one of Kinsey’s patients, a 23-year-old autistic man, wandered out of the facility. Soon after, police were called with a report that a man with a gun was roaming around a neighborhood. The “gun” in question turned out to be a toy truck that the man was carrying with him.

When Kinsey stepped in, he raised his hand in order to signal that he was unarmed. He shouted to the officers that the main was holding a toy train and that he was autistic. Shortly afterwards one of the officers shot Kinsey in the leg. Take note that, Kinsey was unarmed and verbally informed the police of whom he was, why he was there, and that he was unarmed. This is the point where things get even worse; when Kinsey asked why he was shot the officer replied with “I don’t know”. This is really what it boils down to at this point; just an “I don’t know”. But pictures and video tell a different story. They expose the flaws of one of the more famous rules of white supremacism; the “obey or die” rule. This rule is commonly articulated in the argument “If they would have complied, then the officer wouldn’t have to shoot them”.  This rule had been talked about in a previous article about Philando Castille; both Castille and Kinsey had complied to the officers orders and had done what they were allegedly supposed to, but now one is dead and the other is injured.

Via nydailynews.com
Via nydailynews.com

This makes one raise a very frightening and poignant question; what are they going to do next? Is this some sort of retaliation for the death of the officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge? Or is this a more simplistic case of systemic and violent police brutality. Charles Kinsey even got his own hashtag. Think about that; you don’t even have to be dead anymore to be a hashtag. What I’m most curious about is how the police are going to try and dig themselves out of this. Are they going to find out that he was suspended from high school or that he stayed out past curfew one time? Maybe the officer thought the toy truck was going to run him over. So far the cop has been put on administrative leave, and Kinsey is pursuing legal action, but what is to come of that has yet to be determined. I honestly don’t know what to say now. Be watchful brothers and sisters; stay safe and always remember #BlackLivesMatter.

 

 

 

 

 

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