NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – The retrial resumed Friday for a former North Miami police officer charged in the shooting of an unarmed mental health therapist.
Officer Jonathan Aledda faces two counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of culpable negligence after a previous jury acquitted him on another count of culpable negligence related to the 2016 shooting.
A Miami-Dade Police Department dispatch supervisor testified Friday and was questioned about her role and what happened the day Charles Kinsey was shot in the leg by Aledda while he was sitting on the ground next to his autistic patient, who was playing with a toy car.
Authorities said the person who called 911 believed the toy was a gun.
"She did tell the units to use caution," Levenda James said.
"OK, but she didn't tell them that it looks like a toy or the guy with him says it's a toy?" Aledda's defense attorney asked.
"Correct," James answered.
"OK. You can see that that is important information?" the attorney asked.
"Yes I do. But you also have to remember that this information is being given to this dispatcher in real time and it's being blurted out really fast, so sometimes some things can be missed," James said.
James confirmed that there was never a dispatch call that went out saying that the toy was not a firearm.
A witness who recorded cellphone video of the shooting also took the stand Friday, saying she heard officers yell, "Wait, wait, wait!"
"With the third wait, the first shot was fired," Maria Valdez said in Spanish.
Kinsey testified on the first day of the retrial Thursday, and said that neither he nor his patient was armed at the time of the shooting.