WS Chronicle

MIAMI (AP) — The autistic man who was the intended target of a police bullet is suffering from emotional distress, not eating and traumatized following the shooting of his caretaker.

Arnaldo Rios’ mother, Gladys Soto, said during a Saturday news conference that she is worried about the safety of her son, who wandered back to the site of the Monday, July 18 shooting a day later, threw himself on the ground and shouted: “I hate the police, I hate the police,” The Miami Herald reported Saturday.

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

Miriam Soto said her brother is suffering from night terrors and is not sleeping or eating.

“He’s not the same anymore,” Miriam Soto said of her brother.

The four North Miami police officers who aimed rifles at Rios and his black therapist, Charles Kinsey, in the middle of an intersection were responding to a 911 call about a suicidal man with a gun. Rios sat cross-legged. He yelled. He didn’t obey commands to lie down with his hands up, as Kinsey was doing, and he fidgeted with a metal object.

One of the officers, Jonathan Aledda, thought the disabled man was about to shoot Kinsey, who was trying to coax Rios back to a nearby group home, the police union has said. The officer fired three shots at Rios because he thought he was a threat, but he missed and accidentally struck Kinsey in the leg.

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

Monday’s shooting was the latest in a violent month of police shootings, but it also highlights the difficulties officers have in identifying people with autism. The characteristics of autism range from mild quirks or obsessions, to people who can’t communicate, yell and occasionally become violent.

The family’s attorney Matthew Dietz on Saturday criticized the officers’ training in dealing with people with mental illness.

“After they knew that he had autism, what did they do? They threw him on the ground,” Dietz said.