Autistic Child Tasered By Police

[The Straight Story]

ORTLAND - An autistic child was tasered by police in the early morning hours of Dec. 5, when he was found walking shirtless and shoeless down the Broadway Bridge.

According to his great-grandmother, Sir J. Millage has an extremely severe case of autism. He also has a disease where cannot feel extremes in temperature, which is why he was able to be out in cold weather without clothing. His head swerves from side to side and he has outbursts of profanity that can last from three hours to three days due to Tourettes syndrome. He has never been known to be physically violent.

When police saw the 5'10", 260 pound 15-year-old walking down the bridge, they say they were unaware of his illness. Police say it appeared he was holding a metal rod or stick. After Millage did not respond to commands, officers used tasers and struck him with a baton.

Millage lives with his great-grandmother Pastor Mary Overstreet Smith in Portland. She says he snuck out a window that night and the incident with police "tore her heart out." She says that because of his low intelligence level, he cannot respond to commands and that police should be able to tell the difference between a person who has autism and one that is high on drugs.

http://www.koin.com/Global/story.asp?S=5853766

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Man...

They just cannot wait to taser-roast someone these days.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Tragic

http://www.geocities.com/~halbrown/police_autism.html

Advocates for those with developmental disabilities work hard to increase awareness among law enforcement. It's apparent that we need to do more.

[mmonk]

7. Glad to see the office

we go to on occasion for resources (Oberlin Road-Autism Sociatry of North Carolina) cited as a resource. Sounds like the kid had multiple disabilities to deal with. I can't imagine, though, the kid being tasered and clubbed.

[DianeG5385]

3. My autistic son is 15 yo and 210

He looks like a man, not a teenager. I told his team is that my biggest fear is that he finds himdelf alone (thank God he hasn't eloped in nearly 5 years!) and police mistake him for someone on drugs because his speech is so garbled. I'm fortunate to live in a small town where many people, including some police know him but it scares the bejeezus out of me. What happened to this kid is my nightmare!!!

[Solo_in_MD]

12. The small town you live in is about the only way to prevent that from happening

I have a autisic nephew. Keeping him safe is a killing burden on his family. They also made the trade off to live in a small town. It has advantages; Jim knows the entire town in and can find his way home. Cops/neighbors call them when he gets out. However, there are few if any support services and long drives to get the ones they must have.

My take on this and similar incidents is:
- Aboslute vigilance is not possible, and many autistics refuse/fnd ways to take off tracking devices
- Given the split second required to make the call the cops will fall back on thier training and experience. Not sure what else could or should be expected.

I can see both sides on this one, given it was a medium sized city.

[jody]

4. Are some such people candidates for wearing a GPS tracking device? n/t

[DianeG5385]

6. Absolutely, however, some autistic kids hate anything on their skin

such as a bracelet, etc so it's hard to keep it on.

[jody]

8. Understand that a tracking device would work only for some. Is there a group lobbying for those

devices where they might work?

[cureautismnow]

5. So, let's just spend a few million ...

...to find a cure to fight this illness and squander several hundred billions to wage war. Makes perfect sense. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

9. Good going, assholes. n/t

[Diane R]

10. A mentally ill man was tasered to death in Spokane.

It was horrendous. The police essentially murdered him...and all because he started fighting back with a pop bottle after they accosted him.

Also, who can forget the UCLA student who was studying in the library late at night?

I think some police think their Taser guns are toys.

[silverojo]

11. As tragic as this is....

This statement was a bit much: "Police should be able to tell the difference between a person who has autism and one that is high on drugs."

How can they tell the difference? How many cops get "autism" training"? If a teenaged boy is wearing very little clothing, his head was going from side to side, and he's shouting obscenities--and he doesn't obey police commands--of course the cops are going to assume they're dealing with a potentially violent doper.

When the poor kid is suffering from so many conditions, it would make sense to take steps to make sure he couldn't sneak out: an inexpensive motion-sensing alarm near the front and back doors (or the window of his room), for instance, could have alerted the great-grandmother that he was slipping out of the house.

What if it hadn't been cops who tasered him? Thugs could have beaten him up, he could've been hit by a car...any number of dangers exist at night for ordinary people, let alone a kid with so many problems.

If anyone's to blame, it's the health care system that didn't provide him with more than just a great-grandmother to take care of him. He needed some sort of live-in care, because one older woman simply can't handle the daunting task of caring for a boy with autism, Tourette's, etc. Therein lies the tragedy....

[DianeG5385]

13. You clearly have never been near an autistic teen

or adult. It's not as "easy" as younthink to keep autistic people safe from the threat ofpolice and other abuse. In fact, it's a challemge and requires an enormous amount of love, patience and the goodwill of your community. If you keep in touch with the police and let them know that your adorable autistic child is now a six foot "man" they can cope, but the problem is when you leave your safety net, it's hard for people to accept the disability of a normal looking six foot 15 year old. No matter how loving they are. If they can't speak and get separated from a caregiver, they are assumed to be on drugs!!! and treated foully.

[benEzra]

16. For the middle class, there IS NO SAFETY NET...

If anyone's to blame, it's the health care system that didn't provide him with more than just a great-grandmother to take care of him. He needed some sort of live-in care, because one older woman simply can't handle the daunting task of caring for a boy with autism, Tourette's, etc. Therein lies the tragedy....

I don't know this family's situation, but I have found out the hard way that for the middle class, there is no safety net.

My wife and I are parents of a wonderful 7-year-old with DiGeorge Syndrome, aka velocardiofacial syndrome (22q11.2 genetic deletion). He's immune deficient, mentally sharp but physically delayed (significant gross and fine motor delay, can't eat food, can't speak intelligibly), has had two open heart surgeries, seven angioplasties, a Ladd procedure for malrotation of the bowel, and is classified by SSI as disabled. We've paid, oh, $50,000 or more out of pocket so far, and have been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy off and on for years. There are therapies he needs (intensive feeding therapy, intensive PT, OT) that he is getting only intermittently or not at all because we can't afford it.

But guess what--as sick as he is, we can't get Medicaid. We're over the income limit for regular medicaid (they don't take medical and insurance expenses into account unless they exceed 40 or 60 percent of your monthly income), he's not sick enough for CAP-C (denied), and we just got denied a second time for CAP MR-DD (he's not disabled enough, since he can "only" not speak, not eat, has the physical strength and coordination of a 4 year old, and can only attend school an hour or two a day--so he's perfectly fine, can't have medicaid helping kids like him, after all). And, his determination as SSI disabled doesn't count because we're over the income limits--again, gross income only, no expenditures considered--so no SSI disability benefits either. Hospital/doctor bill writeoffs or reduced cost care? For the most part, it's sorry, we are "too rich" (again, gross income based). There are some wonderful social workers in his life who have helped him get a mentor (2-4 hours/wk) and have helped us a couple of times with his nutritional formula and other supplies, and I have wonderful coworkers and family who have pitched in thousands of dollars at a time to keep us out of bankruptcy, but in the long run it looks pretty bleak.

IF I took a job as a janitor, gave up the house and both old vehicles (which we need), and lived in a cardboard box for six months, we could qualify for Medicaid even if he were perfectly healthy (oh, he has a runny nose, here's some medicine, no copay). But as it is, we have so far not qualified even with a chronically ill child who desperately needs more than he's getting.

(Our CAP-MR/DD appeal hearing is set for January, so my fingers are crossed, and I'm hoping they'll reverse the denial and I'll be forced to take the above rant back. I hope.)

Our son isn't autistic, but families of special-needs kids generally have one thing in common, and that is parents that are stretched far beyond their physical and emotional limits on an almost daily basis, and still manage to juggle everything and stay more or less on course. I can't imagine what the family in the OP must be going through over this episode. Sad.




Edited to add:



My son at the cardiologist. He's a trooper (and a very cheerful kid). :)

[ReadTomPaine]

14. Yes, all citizens must be treated as criminals for the safety and protection of the police...

because the well being of police is institutionally placed above that of the public. Nope, there's nothing upside down about that at all.

How about we take the DHS lottery money that's been continually shoveled out to PDs since 9/11 and use it to treat the mentally ill so services like the ones suggested in this thread and more are free and readily available? With crime down and autism up by something like a factor of 5-10, this should be a simple matter of common sense regarding the public's well being, but then again - it's not about the public's well being, is it?

So don't hold your breath waiting for LE to give up the keys the shiny new SUV's, turn down microwave & sonic crowd control weapons, give up 'anti-terror' vehicle racing courses or any of the other pricey perks they've enjoyed since reaping the windfalls of that early September day, no matter how many other worthy public services are being dismantled and defunded to pay for them.

Nope. In fact, from this incident is seems clear they would rather beat and taser the mentally ill before giving up a dime.

[JVS]

15. That's a shame, but I could see how cops might mistake him for someone on PCP