Despite the usual twisting of the truth from the Police PR Spin Machine, the North Miami cop who opened fire on an unarmed man with his hands in the air last year was arrested Wednesday and charged with felony attempted manslaughter.
North Miami police officer Jonathan Aledda was also charged with a misdemeanor charge of culpable negligence.
Although it should have been an obvious decision to charge the cop, especially since he was told to hold his fire before he fired his gun, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has never charged a cop for an on-duty shooting in the 24 years she’s been running the prosecutor’s office.
But by now, everybody is catching on to her police apologist ways, especially after the Miami New Times called her “a disgrace” last month when she refused to charge four prison guards for scalding a man to death in a hot shower.
Apparently, even she could not claim the toy truck held by the autistic man could be perceived as a gun.
Not after North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene admitted to investigators that another sergeant on the scene had already confirmed through binoculars that it was a toy, not a gun, ordering the other cops not to fire.
The rest of the cops held their fire, but not Aledda, who was hired in 2012 despite the fact police had determined he possessed a “lack of tolerance” and was described as “judgmental, argumentative, critical, challenging, rigid, stubborn.”
According to the Miami Herald:
A North Miami police officer will face criminal charges for shooting the unarmed caretaker of an autistic man last summer — one of a string of questionable police shootings of black men nationwide that sparked protests.
Officer Jonathan Aledda was arrested and charged Wednesday with a felony count of attempted manslaughter, and a misdemeanor charge of culpable negligence.
The arrest came nine months after Aledda shot and wounded Charles Kinsey, a behavioral therapist who was lying on his back on the ground, his hands up in the air, begging officers not to shoot — a confrontation partly captured on video from a bystander.
The arrest marks the first time prosecutors under Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle have charged an officer for an on-duty shooting.
The Kinsey case, which came amid protests in many cities over controversial police shootings, was being closely watched.
On July 18, 2016, North Miami officers were summoned to the scene by a 911 caller who reported what appeared to be a disturbed man armed with a handgun.
It was actually a silver toy truck. The man was 26-year-old Arnaldo Rios, a severely autistic man who had wandered away from a group home and sat down in the middle of the street. Kinsey was trying to coax him back to the facility when police arrived.
After the July 18, 2016 shooting, Miami-Dade police union boss John Rivera held a press conference where he berated the media for not being responsible in their reporting, accusing them of not reporting the facts.
But his “facts” were nothing but a laughable police narrative that the autistic man was going to shoot the caretaker with the truck that looked like a gun, which is why Aledda – a trained SWAT team member who has won awards– had to shoot the caretaker.
A video of the incident is posted below. Another video has yet to be made public.
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