Autistic man in gunfire trauma

An autistic man who was the intended target of a police bullet is traumatised following the shooting of his carer, his mother said.

Gladys Soto said her son is suffering emotional distress and is not eating following last Monday’s incident.

She said Arnaldo Rios, 26, wandered back to the site of the shooting in Miami a day later, threw himself on the ground and shouted: “I hate the police, I hate the police.”

Ms Soto said: “It’s too emotional to see your baby caught up in something like this.”

Miriam Soto added that her brother is suffering from night terrors and is not sleeping or eating. “He’s not the same any more,” she said.

The four North Miami police officers who aimed rifles at Mr Rios and his black therapist, Charles Kinsey, in the

“I hate the police, I hate the police”

middle of the road were responding to a 911 call about a suicidal man with a gun.

Mr Rios sat crosslegged, shouted, and did not obey commands to lie down with his hands up, as Mr Kinsey was doing, and he fidgeted with a metal object.

One of the officers, Jonathan Aledda, thought the disabled man was about to shoot Mr Kinsey, who was trying to coax Mr Rios back to a nearby group home, the police union has said.

The officer fired three shots at Mr Rios because he thought he was a threat, but he missed and accidentally struck Mr Kinsey in the leg.

The metal object turned out to be a toy truck and there was no suicide threat.

The family’s lawyer Matthew Dietz criticised the officers’ training in dealing with people with mental illness.