Jury deadlocks on North Miami cop who shot unarmed caretaker
A Florida police officer accused of shooting and wounding a severely autistic man's caretaker, was acquitted on one misdemeanor negligence count Friday and a jury deadlocked on three other charges, including two felonies. A mistrial was declared on those three charges.
The six-person jury found North Miami police officer Jonathan Aledda not guilty Friday of culpable negligence, The Miami Herald reported. A second negligence charge and two counts of attempted manslaughter, a felony, resulted in a hung jury.
The jury foreperson said the vote was 5-1 to acquit Aledda of the other charges. The judge scheduled a March 27 hearing to discuss whether the state will retry Aledda on those counts.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle released a statement saying she would discuss the case with her prosecutors.
Aledda testified this week that he thought Arnaldo Rios Soto had a gun and was holding his caretaker, Charles Kinsey, hostage. It turned out Rios was holding a toy truck. Aledda insisted he never heard another message on police radio that it wasn't a gun.
The incident gained national attention after it was partially captured on a bystander's video. Authorities said Kinsey was lying in the street with his arms upraised, begging police not to shoot.
"With a lot of power and authority also comes a lot of responsibility," Miami-Dade Chief Assistant State Attorney Don Horn told jurors during closing arguments Thursday. "The shots that Jonathan Aledda fired were not a misfire. Each shot was intentional while he was trying to kill Arnaldo Rios Soto. Each shot was unnecessary and unreasonable."
Prosecutors say Rios had left his nearby group home and sat down in the road to play with his toy. A motorist called 911, saying the man was holding what may be a gun and appeared suicidal. Kinsey was trying to coax him back into the home when police arrived and surrounded them.
Aledda, a trained SWAT member, fired, striking Kinsey in the leg. Aledda's defense lawyer, Douglas Hartman, blamed faulty radios and poor supervision by the North Miami Police Department for the miscommunications that led to the shooting.
"He had a life-and-death situation. He thought without question that Mr. Kinsey was going to die, be shot and murdered," Hartman told the jury of five men and one woman.
Aledda is the first police officer charged with an on-duty shooting by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who took office in 1994.