So are the police just shooting anyone they want now?!

That is truly disgusting!

Just saw it on Good Morning America.

This makes me so sad.

I'm not sure what he could have done differently. And he still got shot.

I must have missed it...I don't always watch channel 8 news. Thanks for the heads up!

Victim said, "Why did you shoot me?"

Cop said, "I don't know."

This is someone who should be carrying a firearm?

WTF.

Good lord. I'm glad the poor guy he shot wasn't seriously injured.

looking at the still photos, I'm wondering if the cop got loosey-goosey with the trigger and intended to shoot the patient and ended up getting the therapist in the leg? The report states he was shot three times, but the therapist only mentioned one shot.

whoa, calm down there ladies!

I never said that shooting an autistic patient with a toy was warranted. Step back and think a bit. Whew!

It is more probable to me that a cop would think someone with a gun (as they were told in the 911 call), pointing it in different directions (as you can see in the video), is a threat than a man lying on his back with his hands in the air. Either way, pulling the trigger is wrong, no doubt. I can simply understand one mistake (I assume with the "I don't know.") more than the other.

In this situation, the cop needs to lose his job, at the very, very least. He is obviously not qualified for this job.

That poor therapist. And his patient. He was probably traumatized too.

Even if he meant to shoot the patient (wtf?!) and shot the therapist instead, at the very least it means he has shitty aim. Either way, that is not someone who should be on the police force.

No, I'm still going with WTF.

Intended. To. Shoot. The. Autistic. Patient. Holding. A. Toy. Car. But missed. Because maybe they can't tell a toy car from a gun even after they were clearly informed what it was?

As if that's all just a mistake, when I'm not actually sure which is worse - shooting the complying caregiver or the autistic patient.

It's terrifying to me that if I'm ever in a situation where cops are called, a police officer like that one may show up.

I worked my way through college at a group home. My clients were all black adult men who functioned developmentally at a toddler level. One of the guys I cared for was 250lb of solid muscle and would occasionally "go off" in a tantrum of epic proportions where he became combative. He could've seriously injured any one of us, but you know what, we were trained on how to handle that and managed to do so without ever laying a hand (much less a weapon) on our clients. If an 18 year old unarmed college girl can be trained to deescalate a potentially violent threat in the 16 hours of training we had, I expect that an adult police officer can do the same after months at a police academy.

If officers are so terrified to do their jobs that their first instinct when seeing a clearly disabled adult playing with a toy is to pull out a weapon and start firing, then they are in the wrong profession. I get that there are times when officers are in very dangerous situations, but not every situation warrants the level of force that we're seeing used in recent days. If you are scared to death to do your job, then find a different one. There is NO excuse for this - NONE!

I cannot imagine the fear that parents of children with Autism must be feeling today.

Then they should choose another profession. SaveSave