On July 18, 2016, North Miami police officer Jonathan Aledda, fired three shots at a man while he laid on the ground with his hands up. Charles Kinsey, a behavioral therapist at a local group home, was caring for an autistic patient who was playing with a toy truck and made this clear before he was shot in the leg by the police officer. Cell phone video taken at the scene showed that Kinsey was compliant as he immediately threw his hands in the air and begged the officer not to shoot. In an interview with WSVN Kinsey said, “It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, ‘I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No I just got shot! And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.'”

After the incident, union officials defended Aledda's actions saying that the officer though the autistic man with Kinsey had a gun – not a toy truck. But a newly discovered hour long recording obtained by the Miami New Times on Tuesday contradicts that claim. In the recording, North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said that after the shooting, an assistant chief repeatedly lied to him, and city manager Larry Spring ignored vital evidence in the shooting. "The scene was a mess, to be honest with you," he told investigators. "People are walking all over the place. Thank God (Kinsey) did not die." Eugene goes on to describe the audio of the police radio just before the shooting. "I heard the shooter, Officer Aledda, make a statement to the nature of, 'Be advised, I have a clear shot. Later on, a sergeant got on the air and said, 'I have a visual, it is a toy. Is it a toy?'" Eugene continues, "that means stand by, don't do anything…The next transmission was by another officer saying 'shot fired!' 

Much of Eugene's interview centers around North Miami Police commander Emile Hollant, who was present at the shooting and suspended afterward. Michael Joseph, an attorney representing Hollant who is suing the city over his discipline said, "It's pretty damming, what's in the tape…the police chief outlines rogue officials. Something has to be done about this. The city has to do the right thing here and clean house."

Eight months after the incident, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle still has not charged anyone involved in the shooting.