The man who shot Charles Kinsey

It really shouldn't be surprising when that the cop who shot a black man lying on the grounds with his hands up, urging his Latino autistic client to do likewise, was charged. It is surprising. We're not used to even this first step towards accountability happening.

But Officer Jonathan Aledda was arrested and charged with attempted manslaughter.

More on Charles Kinsey and Arnaldo Rios here and here.

The Abuse of Arnaldo Rios - #CharlesKinsey Shooting

Content Notes: Abuse of an Autistic Individual

On Monday, a police officer shot Charles Kinsey, a black therapist who was trying to help his client - a young Latino man named Arnaldo Rios - not get shot. Rios had walked away from his group home and someone called 911, claiming that a man was suicidal and armed with a gun. Rios, in fact, autistic not suicidal, and was carrying a toy fire truck.

Kinsey got to the scene around the same time as the cops, lay on his back with his arms in the air to show the police he wasn't threatening, and was trying to get Arnaldo to do the same when the police shot him. That's the story we've known. I covered it here for CNN and in two blog entries.

Now here's some new information. UPDATE: Important piece from Miami Herald based on interviews with Rios' family.

First  - The officer was identified and his commander suspended for trying to falsify evidence. No further details yet available.  Notice this rhetoric though, as one of my friends on Facebook pointed out:

Second - The Rios family has a lawyer, disability rights expert Matthew Dietz, who shared a picture of Arnaldo (below) and spoke to me over the phone. Dietz told me the following.

• Rios left the home holding a truck and Kinsey, with whom he had a close relationship, followed to help.
• After Rios saw Kinsey get shot, the police handcuffed Rios and put him in the back of a police car for THREE OR FOUR HOURS, handcuffed the entire time. Dietz told me that Rios, as is typical of many autistic individuals, calms himself by stimming - rocking his body and shaking his hands and arms. During those three or four hours, therefore, Rios was both upset at seeing his friend and therapist shot AND prevented from calming himself AND denied any immediate assistance despite everyone knowing they had taken custody of an autistic individual.
• NOTE FROM ME: If you want to know more about stimming and the abuse of being kept from doing it, from an autistic perspective, read Julia Bascom's essay Quiet Hands. 
• Rios was eventually taken to a mental health ward of a local hospital, where he remains, despite them being completely unequipped to address Rios' needs. Rios cannot return to the group home, as earlier attempts left him showing signs of trauma. There are no other suitable facilities in Miami-Dade County to Dietz' knowledge.

Here's the picture, which shows a smiling Latino man holding a teddy bear, sitting on a bed.

911 Call and Charles Kinsey

I have a new piece up at CNN on the shooting of Charles Kinsey, protected a Latino autistic man named Arnaldo Rios [Edit: See below for correction information] and the intersections of racism, ableism, and the #CultOfCompliance.

Kinsey later told reporters, "I was really more worried about him than myself. I was thinking as long as I have my hands up ... they're not going to shoot me."
Then they shot him.
While the specifics of this case are unusual, the general pattern is not. Compliance-based policing -- when police treat noncompliance with their instructions, on its own, as a threat -- puts everyone at some risk.

The piece is about racism and ableism, compliance-based policing like ask-tell-make, and exploring the broader pattern that led to the inexplicable specifics of the incident.

Two things are missing from my CNN essay. First, after I filed, the officer, through his union, has claimed he was shooting at Arnaldo to protect Kinsey. I do not think this is credible, but is rather an attempt to create an "objectively reasonable" standard from which to defend his actions. It's astoundingly brazen but again plays on the ableist idea that people with disabilities, especially non-white individuals, are erratic and prone to violence.

Look at this picture. It's just not objectively reasonable to conclude there was imminent danger and I hope both the department and the legal system agree with me.

It is not objectively reasonable to deem that this sitting man is threatening the other man. #charleskinsey pic.twitter.com/LEECQHgsFh

— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) July 21, 2016

Second, though, why did the police arrive at the scene believing there was danger? That's the 911 call which, according to our best information, claimed there was a person armed with a gun contemplating suicide.

• We don't know who made the call, but we do know that Arnaldo is relatively non-verbal and was holding a toy truck when he wandered off from his home. 
• Given those facts, how did someone decide he was suicidal and dangerous?
• I'm guessing - and that's why I couldn't put it on CNN - that this 911 caller was afraid of a Latino acting "odd" who was holding something in his hand, so made the call. 
• It's possible of course that they were maliciously trying to get someone killed

I don't know how we build systems to prevent this kind of 911 call. There's got to be protections so that callers are safe to phone in suspicions without fear of reprisal, but we've also got to protect civilians from being targeted like this because their race, disability, or other markers of identity make someone uncomfortable.

Reminder: Both John Crawford and Tamir Rice, to pick two names you know, were killed after 911 calls indicated threats where none existed (though Rice's called said 'probably fake').

Correction: The individual's name was widely reported as Rinaldo, but is now reported as Arnaldo Rios. Changed in this and previous posts.