[Ben E Lou]

More on that context...

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I don't know a ton about autism, but my nephew has a case that I would consider "severe." He's 15. He barely talks. He rarely/never makes eye contact. He screams at the top of his lungs for longs periods of time with his face inches from face when you do something he doesn't like. He *sometimes* does what my brother and sister-in-law tell him to do immediately, but usually it takes 2 or 3 times even for them, and he ignores pretty much everyone else as if he didn't hear you. There's basically zero chance that he'd comply with an officer's orders. My brother and sister-in-law try their best not to let him out of their sight, but now that he's older, he has gotten out of the house and started walking down the street a few times. And my brother and sister-in-law live in a mostly-white higher-end neighborhood. They are quite worried for him after hearing about this story.

Originally Posted by PilotMan

And they should be. My oldest is high functioning to the point that he has his first job and a drivers license at the age of 21. He was involved in a single car accident and the officer who showed up to question him became very hostile and aggressive toward him when he was slow to answer questions and couldn't give a factual recounting of what had happened. He started yelling at him, accused him of being on drugs, of driving distracted, and totally scared the crap out of him. This was his first dealing with the police, all on his own and is really shook him up.

When I got there I explained to the officer that he was high functioning autistic and the officer said he didn't know what that was. That blew me away.

We've looked into getting a card made up that he can pass to the officer to explain himself better before things escalate like that. Keep in mind, the escalation was 100% initiated by the officer.

The Mrs and I were discussing this very event yesterday it disturbed us greatly. There are countless stories of special needs adults, trying to be independent, who end up out of their element, who end up in tazed, cuffed and in jail. At least they weren't shot first.