After overturned conviction, Miami prosecutors won’t retry cop who shot at autistic man

Prosecutors on Thursday dropped the misdemeanor case against a former North Miami police officer who was convicted for shooting at an autistic man holding a silver toy truck.

The decision came one month after a Miami appeals court overturned the misdemeanor culpable negligence conviction for Jonathon Aledda, a case that drew national headlines as the nation grappled with a series of high-profile police shootings.

Aledda claimed he believed the man was holding a firearm and holding another man hostage during a standoff six years ago. Aledda missed and instead hit and wounded the other man, Charles Kinsey, a therapist who was lying in the street with his hands in the air.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office did not immediately explain its decision. But the decision was expected because Aledda — who was fired from the North Miami police department — had already served his sentence: one year of probation, plus 100 hours of community service and the task of writing a 2,500-word essay on communication and weapon discharges.

“Jonathon is a free man. He’s really happy,” said one of his defense attorneys, Douglas Hartman. “He’s going to pursue getting his job back.”

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said the office remained “disappointed” in the decision by the appeals court, and the shooting was “unnecessary and incorrect.” But she said trying Aledda again — in what would be his third trial — was not the right move.

“As it is unlikely that Aledda would receive any additional significant punishment if he was convicted of a misdemeanor again in a third trial, we have made the difficult decision not to proceed with a third trial in this case,” she said in a statement.

It was in July 2016 that Aledda fired three times at Arnaldo Rios Soto, but hit and wounded Kinsey, an unarmed behavioral therapist who was lying on the ground with his hands in the air, begging police not to shoot.

During his first trial in June 2019, jurors deadlocked on three counts and acquitted him of one misdemeanor. At his second trial months later, Aledda testified that he believed Soto had a gun and was holding Kinsey hostage in the middle of a North Miami street. A motorist had called 911 to report a man she believed might be holding a gun to his head. Prosecutors argued that Aledda fired in haste, ignoring a radio dispatch from another cop who had determined the toy was no weapon.

The jury acquitted him of two felony counts of attempted manslaughter but convicted on the misdemeanor. A Miami judge sentenced him to probation, and granted him a “withhold of adjudication,” meaning no conviction appeared on his record.

The Third District Court of Appeals, however, ruled that the conviction was tainted because the court refused to allow Aledda’s SWAT commander to testify about the special training he’d received on dealing with hostage rescues. The SWAT commander was not considered an “expert,” however, and the North Miami hostage situation was not being handled by the SWAT unit.

This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 11:07 AM.