A Mother's Thoughts on Tybee Island.

[kerinda]

One of the greatest fears a parent of an autistic child can have is what will happen to them when they grow up into adults, functional adults who cannot and should not have to be babysat like 6 year olds.  He should be allowed to walk down the street or sit on the curb in peace.  He should be able to wait outside (observing the law,

Comments

Devil's Advocate mode

[richardx1]

What local police department is going to allocate training funds to deal with a situation that one officer might encounter once in his entire career on the force?

Re: Devil's Advocate mode

[kerinda]

Many, many departments do. There are also non-profit volunteer specialists in the field that go to police and fire departments to train first responders on all of the issues of dealing with individuals with autism (The Autism Risk and Safety Management Institute is one of them, covers Texas actually).

There really is no excuse.

Re: Devil's Advocate mode

[kerinda]

Oh, and since autism is now at 1:100, it's quite likely they'll encounter them more than once in their career.

Re: Devil's Advocate mode

[richardx1]

TIPD has already committed to getting further training for their officers. As to the young man not breaking any laws, with as many revelers as Tybee has on Beach Bum (many, many thousands of people in an area only a few blocks in any direction), most of them drunk, anyone an officer might find ready to pass out (or sitting on the curb with their head down) would like be asked to get up and move along. In the sort of crowds to be found on the island that day, given that the young man's brother *and friend* had left him alone to go get food, they would clearly have been thinking more clearly if they had either left the island to eat in a less rowdy place with a wait time measured in minutes instead of hours or at least one of them stayed outside. All-in-all, I find it hard to lay too much blame on much of anyone in this situation. He's lucky the police tased him, rather than some drunkard coming by and laying into him for being different which could have ended far worse - and neither of which would have happened if his friends didn't

[wyvernfree]

When did it become OK to tase a teenager for being drunk anyway? Seriously, what kind of a stupid excuse is that? They could have tased pretty much my entire college campus at that point, you know?

I hope this guy is recovering OK... I know incidents like these are even more distressing for autistic kids than they would be for other people.

[kerinda]

Exactly. Even if he *were* drunk, he wasn't disorderly until they started manhandling him. And even then, all of his reactions were defensive ones, not offensive ones.

[richardx1]

Oh, totally. If underage inebriation were a tasable offence, it would be easier just to electrify every surface of every college campus in the U.S.