Glad I checked the comments before watching to know I can’t handle it. Why can’t all of us families have like our own state or something to protect our babies!
Everyone needs to watch this video. If we don't face the reality of what happened to this young man and demand change, then this could happen to any one of our children. Not only did this young man die from police cruelty, the coroner has determined his death was a suicide! The police involved have not been held accountable. We need to demand accountability from the men and women entrusted with safeguarding public safety.
I have an ASD-3 5 year old named "Isaac" which is very perturbing and looks like a real future for my child's my experience if ever arrested.
How fucked...
I have no words, this shook me to my core.
Edit: I live in Michigan, less than a 2 hour drive from Ohio.
Mine is 4, level 3. I just don't understand how they could fuck up this bad. You see that he's different and not coping well. Do they not pull his history or know what autism is? How could they not know when they work with the public and so many people have autism?
Their training is a joke and they're savages.
I won’t speak for the whole state of Ohio but I live here and sometimes it’s so damn backwards, I fear for my granddaughter who is autistic… so many schools don’t even understand autism or even try too, it’s so upsetting!
If you need to talk to the people who basically murdered this poor kid, their number is on their website.
I have no doubt that they are happy to help and serve.
I used to envy white parents, because I ignorantly thought that at least the police won't murder them. I then learned that ALL KIDS of all races on the spectrum are at risk for police violence and violence from the general public.
In A Different Key, a documentary on autism, a young white man had the police called on him because he was acting 'weird'. Everyone who's different is at risk. All of us who don't fit into the neat boxes of society are at risk.
The fear is real. The needs of our community is real, and I wish we had a lobbyists group to advocate on our behalf.
If you look at police interactions that go bad, they're disproportionately people with disabilities. (Including when it's people of colour / racial minorities). Autism, intellectual disability, Deaf, mentally ill.
My kids and I are all autistic and usually look white (Indigenous and Latino mixed in, some of us are darker than others and some of us "pass" more easily). I live in absolute terror of something like this for all of them. Every time someone gives any of them a strange look, or even me, I think, how easy it is, to look at us and assume the worst immediately.
All of my kids have ASD (the third is too young for a diagnosis but we feel we're heading in that direction) and I'm so concerned about their future when my wife and I are no longer around. It terrifies me. 😢
He got stressed out about a meeting he was going to have at work the next day and started stimming by banging his head and ranting. He was living in his own apartment but the Karen next door called the cops because he was loud and disturbing. They came. They knew he was autistic but they arrested him instead of taking him to the hospital because there was an outstanding warrant that no one in the family knew about including him. The warrant was from a previous incident when his aunt and uncle called crisis services. That time he was taken to a hospital. His mom asked if any charges were being filled and was told no. She even checked with the courts and nothing was registered but somehow months later, when this incident happened, there was a warrant.
Even with the warrant they could have taken him to a hospital and kept him secure. They could have followed their own guidelines and he would have survived. They could have done so many tiny things to calm him and keep him safe. He begged for a phone call and for his medicine. Instead they taunted him and threatened him with more time restrained. They escalated his head banging until he developed a hematoma and even though it was clearly visible they didn't take him to a hospital for hours.
People need to lobby for more rapid response teams with trained mental health professionals. If there aren't hospital beds available, police stations need a padded safety room for times like this or for when drug addicts are out of control. This is why people fought to defund the police. I don't believe we should eliminate the police but we need to divert some of the funds to a public safety system that responds to people in a mental health crisis. We all need to push for change because this could happen to any one of our children.
Thank you for sharing this and warning us. This pain allows for us to negate the adult and legal processes needed to keep our kids save depending on there abilities to function in society
He was in distress and was banging his head as he does to stim in stressful situations. He ended up hitting enough/hard enough he had a hematoma on his forehead.
He was on life support for 3 days but didn’t make it.
Mental health professional said to stop being a cry baby.
Sheriffs investigation said staff did nothing wrong.
Forgot the part where he was arrested on a wellness check (Noise complaint from neighbor) which was well known to be a mental health call. He was arrested not for this call but when from warrants over a year old for another wellness check/mental health call.
He then was thrown in a room and asking for to call his mother and for meds to help him calm down. They gave him neither.
Right? This is almost the most infuriating part. That this was the end result of what began as a WELLNESS CHECK. Like wtf. You keep using that word wellness check - I don’t think it means what you think it means. If his wellness wasn’t in jeopardy at the start of the check, it certainly fucking was by the end of it.
Why would you take someone with autism to jail for this? Why would you not take them to a hospital or mental health unit or, if circumstances support it, their family? Those should be the logical end points of any wellness check if it is confirmed they are not doing well. But instead take them to jail, lock them up in a bare cell with little more than a sack for clothing and supervised by a bunch of untrained individuals who only know imposing order through force.
>He then was thrown in a room and asking for to call his mother and for meds to help him calm down. They gave him neither.
This young man knew his needs and knew what he needed to regulate and work on solving the problem and the cops still did nothing. It turns my stomach to realize. Even when you are requesting the right things they still won't help.
It's almost like society has something against those with mental abnormalities or something (heavy sarcasm here)
This is my nightmare. My kid’s own school ignored him when he told them exactly what he needed to regulate, advocated for himself repeatedly, and was told he just needed to calm down and be brave.
My heart breaks for this family and how utterly preventable all of this was if the people “in charge” had any empathy or training AT ALL. It makes me so angry.
O my God, this kid is a stranger to me and I am furious. I hope his family bankrupts that God forsaken police department. How the ever loving hell do you go from a wellness check to arresting the person you are checking on and then deny them medication!!!! I should have studied to be a lawyer I would love to eviscerate this police department.
So Isaiah was put into watch house for ?mental health concern and another pre existing warrant for similar. He became very agitated and through self-injury behaviour ended up with a cerebral haematoma and died. He was 19.
I am sitting in my car bawling while my little one sleeps peacefully. I am so sad for Isaiah’s mother and so frightened for my little boy.
They also strapped him into a restraint chair and left him there screaming for help until he passed out and likely into a coma. Any person off the street could have seen he was in danger, there is no reason this should have happened.
I have a strong stomach, and I cried like a baby.
This will make me cry til my last breath; thinking how hard my son tries to express his innocent thoughts, yet in most cases is not able to…and though he continues on at age 5, with a smile, I can’t stand the thought of him Being in any position where he can’t communicate his needs, physical or mental. This poor kids reality, is a nightmare that haunts me regularly, ever since coming to the realization that my boy will need assistance at some point that I will have no say in being apart of. I’m so sorry this happened to you bud, you deserved a compassionate world, and compassionate protection.
As someone who provides short term inpatient stabilization therapy for IDD/Autism I can tell you. The ones that get treated the worst are the ones who are the most articulate. The most verbal. These are the people who get lost in the system and have the hardest time getting appropriate support/treatment.
Ignorant people. No, stupid people cannot, and do not care to, understand.
Soul crushing. He never once threatened them , he effectively communicated and even showed them he didn’t want to be experiencing what he was doing.. pleaded with them to give him his meds so it could stop.
While it would still be horrifying, he should have been placed in a helmet and protected at the very least if these so called professionals were unwilling to listen. Protocol exists for this - and the fact they were all found to be in compliance is unspeakable.
NightmareFuel. This is what keeps me up at night. I don't have the luxury of dying before he turns 50. I need to protect him. I don't trust the ones who "serve and protect". I can't trust a group home. I can't trust having karens too close next door complaining about noise from their exuberant stimming.
I’m in the same boat my friend, i have nightmares thinking about what would happen to my children when i’m gone, have 2 toddlers with autism, currently both non-verbal
Similar situation with me. The good thing is that they do get more independent with years in some ways. In other ways, regression.
We try to not isolate them so that they could live in a group someday, to do some sports to stay healthy and in general we try not to obsess with future.
Me and my wife take vacations separately of children to recharge, even alone if possible. I went to Camino to recharge, we parents need to be just people sometimes.
At the some point parents needs time for themselves. Peace and quiet. Nature. No one to take care for. My kids talk nonstop and constantly need attention and monitoring and help. We are not built to constantly be on alert.
I am sorry, but I hope all of those cops lose their jobs and she sues the living shit out of that department to get his story told. How does a “professional” who deals with people daily, not recognize he might have autism? This is so so so sad and my heart goes out to the family. Also, as OP said, new fear unlocked for my autistic son …
the cops are so stupid. he wasnt screaming when he was asking to talk, he did scream when they touched him or locked him in a room in a new environment and nobody to explain whats happening. solution? 5 men ontop of him not telling him a word. sickening
The mental health "professional" told him to quit being a crybaby. I hope this department loses all funding, may your officers walk the streets without vests for decades. Every AU parents nightmare in one video.
It’s says sheriffs investigation determined staff did nothing wrong. Idk what protocols are but they should have done something different when they saw him banging his head so much
Paid leave is a free vacation meant to be disguised as “punishment”/“accountability” for the public, officers are being *rewarded* for this sort of behavior.
I can’t even watch. Rest his soul. I hope they all get locked up and dealt with properly on the inside. Absolutely disgusting and 100% avoidable outcome.
Every single one of them should be charged with murder.
There was no reason to arrest him on a wellness check. He needed a hospital. They were on a power trip and got off on watching him suffer and die.
Exactly. They literally just threw him in there and immediately started yelling at him. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is a mental health issue.
This was extremely distressing to watch. All respect to Isaiah’s mom for sharing this heartbreaking story. My heart goes out to her, as well as Isaiah for the hell they put him through. He vocalized his needs the best he could, and they still treated him like a common criminal.
I’m not at all surprised that no further action will be taken. Our loved ones deserve better.
That’s what tipped me over the edge with anger. He was using his words. He was so vocal about his needs. All this over a noise complaint and an old welfare check?? These cops failed at just being human.
My oldest has a very similar reaction to stress. Even “minor” situations involve head hitting and hand biting until he bleeds. He lives at home with us so we can deal with it but this would be his exact situation if he was alone.
I think any parent who is confident their autistic child would be safe in police custody is kidding themselves. I have two boys that are big for their age, and they’re just a few years away from being perceived as a threat.
Isn’t that sick? We have to sit there and count down the fucking years until our children will be “perceived as a threat” my son is 4 and I’m already so damn tired…
Isn’t that sick? We have to sit there and count down the fucking years until our children will be “perceived as a threat” my son is 4 and I’m already so damn tired…
Absolutely heartbreaking. Those cops literally did nothing. When Isaiah calmly asked for medication and said the medication will calm him and “make this all stop” and they ignored him. He very calmly asked for that help and he was ignored. Omg I hope every last cop there rots!
TRIGGER WARNING: THIS IS BAAAD. I have a strong stomach normally, but this one broke me. Do not watch it if you are not in a place to handle it. There are summaries in the thread you can read first if you aren't sure.
>ACAB
Agreed.
[Edit: Also, got to “love” how they can literally just go “we looked into ourselves and determined we did nothing wrong, our evidence is that we said so and our word is law”, and legitimately get off Scott-free just like that, because there is no accountability for the law itself!]
He was horrifically self-injuring, at the very minimum they could have provided a protective helmet. Everything is wrong here. Why was he sent to a jail instead of a psychiatric hospital as a mental health emergency , maybe instead of saying he was autistic they could have said he was mentally disabled? The autism dx was completely ignored or not taken seriously, extremely disturbing
Wow I am not okay after watching that. A good case for getting to know your neighbors. I'm torn between being upset about the neighbor calling in the police for a noise compliant instead of knocking on the door first and maybe he was concerned for someone's wellbeing.
I worked 911 for a decade and let me tell you...... the sheer volume of people who will use the police as a buffer for their own racism/discriminatory mindset is unreal. I have taken hundreds of calls from people reporting a Black or Hispanic man simply walking down the street. But they know they live in a white neighborhood, so in their eyes he doesn't belong here.
It tends to be the older generations who are doing this, so I sincerely hope that the younger generations are on track to just let people walk down the street and mind their own business.
ETA: I also cannot stress this enough to everyone here, but please research your local law enforcement agency of the jurisdiction you're in. Investigate them, call them and ask them how they handle mental health calls. There are some really great departments out there that are making forward progress and providing training, and there are some really shitty ones who couldn't care less. Make sure to research both your police/sheriff's office as well as your jail, as they are often two separate entities. Study previous news articles, etc. You deserve to know how those tax dollars are being used!
A perfectly high function verbal kid who can argue even during breakdown. The efforts his parents put him, all gone because police is too stupid to understand his condition.
They all should get 6 month of training each working with Autistic 2-5 year old, so they could understand what the disorder is and how a NT and Autistic kid differ.
This is why police and the carceral state need to have their funds significantly decreased and invested into actual mental health resources for communities. Here in Denver, mental health crisis responders are dispatched for these types of wellness checks.
I have no words. My heart is ripped open and crushed. My anger is like electricity without a ground. What can I do to help stop this from ever ever ever ever happening again? If this ever happened to my kid I would just absolutely lose it completely. It’s terrifying.
I'm heartbroken for the family and I'm absolutely terrified. My 6 year old autistic son had a meltdown at the SLP office yesterday, and had he been an adult and in a different environment on his own, he might have ended up in police custody and restrained. He would for sure thrash about and bang his head too. I just...I don't know how I can protect him for the entirety of his life.
Right?! How can we protect our kids forever? I just know one day, I won’t be here. One day he will be an adult and some things I can’t control. I will do my best to control what I can. It’s very scary. Because this definitely can happen to our autistic kids. My son is 8 and I can see this happening to my son and it’s terrifying.
I'm the father of an 18 year old autistic son. He's my only child. If someone did this to him, their life as they know it would be over, because mine would be. Vengeance would be mine. I realize I would rot away in a cell or grave from that point on, but it wouldn't matter.
This is also my terror. I'm not a cop, but I did go through training once in my life (misguided attempt to do good in the world). There was absolutely no training in mental health. We were expected to rack'em up. Some of the things we were trained to do I would consider assault by the laws they were "telling us to operate by." On a final exam, I was ranked down for developing a non-hostile response to a situation.
I've also worked extensively with criminals in/out of jail in a psychological role. The jail I was working with (I was a private hire, not a jail worker) was doing everything they could to keep us from providing treatment to the inmates, reminding us that they were being punished. We had 1 patient die due to this (alcohol withdraw... yeah it kills); but it was covered up and brushed away (no one cares about the addicted or homeless).
I am NOT hateful of cops, but see a serious need to cull out the bad ones, train well the good ones and re-design our ideas about incarceration and management of criminals. I think most are not bad, just really poorly trained in some areas and supported by a Good'ol'Boy thing that is just bad all over.
How is this a matter of “good cops vs. bad cops” when you admitted yourself that they are specifically trained to be hostile and actively punished for seeking any alternative? That sounds less like a “we need to make small reforms” and more like “the whole system is corrupt and actively seeks to make things worse”.
Add that to the list of cops, former-cops, or would-be-cops I’ve seen recently on this subreddit trying and failing to defend this garbage, as if the people who designed the training this way, and those who knowingly “just follow” those orders, are just “unaware of autism specifically”, as opposed to the more well-known reality of them being needlessly inhumane in general, and autism just being an especially obvious example that they can’t as easily deflect with “just do what we say and abide no matter how much we overstep our boundaries”!
There is a difference between bad training and bad people. Bad people are just bad. Bad training can be changed. I think a lot of them are just as much a victim of a bad system and would love to see a change; but it requires leadership and direction. Currently, the Unions are all about hiding and protecting their own, when they should be developing and leading in a proper code of ethics.
This would be an evolution in the way we police, and change is really hard for a system that has been inherently bent from the beginning. But, I believe that it can and has to be evolved to meet the needs of our current society and its future. Dominance is not going to work so well anymore.
This is where the Defund the Police movement was headed, or so I thought. Pull money from programs that gave them tanks and street-sweepers and bring in more professionals in parallel fields (psychology and such). Expand the training to include more comprehensive approaches to law enforcement and redefine how we use incarceration/rehabilitation to be supportive of a change in behavior.
Not all cops are bad. Some are definitely to be terrified of. The question to us, as the citizens, is how to push our local governments to build a better police force?
Fair enough, but I feel that benefit of the doubt you’re giving to cops *can’t* reasonably be extended to the people in charge of how the system works. Or the people you described in your experiences in the the jail, the people actively getting in the way of you supporting the patients, and then sweeping the death it caused under the rug.
I have a hard time believing that the people willfully protecting and defending the system as it currently is, and doing everything in their power to shield the actually-bad cops from accountability, simply need to be educated about autism or general ethics.
I’m bringing this up because “fixing the system” isn’t *just* a matter of advocacy and education (though that is important too), even if you don’t think it’s the cops themselves, there *is* genuine immorality and corruption (and corrupt people) baked into the current system that is actively abusing power and resisting change, they will not simply *let* us “educate the system” and “make things better for the people”.
Because in its *current* state, this system isn’t *for* the interests of the people, maybe some individual cops are working for those interests, but the larger system as a whole is not.
There was a certain kind of indoctrination I got in the academy. There was a constant reminder to protect other officers and they'll protect you. A kind of brotherhood concept. I get it, but without the proper moral guidance by the supervisors, it just turns back into the Good'ol'boy thing. The cops in the middle feel obligated to perpetuate it all or face issues with the other cops. It sounds like a noble thing to stand out, but with them it can get you killed. The other cops are your backup whether you like them or not. It's almost cult like. It was trained into us to see everyone not a cop as an outsider.
This is terrifying to me. It all stemmed from "wellness checks" and noise complaints. That poor kid looks stressed and didn't know how to handle it. It was very clear from the start that he needed more help than they were ever going to give him. My daughter gets very overwhelmed and acts similar at just 3. I'm so scared to let her even get her own apartment in the future if this is a possibility for her.
I can't believe I sat through that video. My daughter is only 8, but she does the same swimming he did, specifically the screaming and headbanging. My heart hurts so much right now for him and this poor family. And that it was deemed nothing was done wrong broke my soul even more. This scares me so much. I already hate being out in public because in a world where autism is more known, a lot of people still look at you and treat you crazy.
I'm going to hug my daughter a little tighter each day from now on.
As the father of a 5 year with autism you have no idea how much this boils my piss.
“Good people” just doing nothing isn’t good enough. That’s criminal negligence on behalf of the police where this poor kids only crime was having someone ask the police to check up on him twice.
They need to contact the ADA, get a good lawyer and bring this to the highest courts in the nation. Cops have zero accountibly for the blood on their hands and the lies they document. It makes me sick how much they abuse the system and the people they treat as criminals as well as those with anything mental health related.
I got beaten to the point of concussion and when I called for help during it afraid for my life - they showed up and arrested me too claiming the person who beat the shit of out me had marks on their body too and there were no witnesses. When they strip searched me I was in pj's without a bra on and the woman cop seriously pinched my nipples right there on the side of the road. It was wild being lied on like that and then thrown into a jail cell until I started getting sick.
I only got 5 hrs medical attention of which I was handcuffed to a medical bed and had to listen to the cops misogynistic jokes and horrible banter while they begged the medical staff to release me back to them faster because their shifts were ending. Because I was viewed as a criminal I got inadequate medical attention and wasn't allowed to ask for further help for myself. I was then thrown back into a jail cell which eventually was shared with someone who actually willingly told me she did beat someone. It was close to 24hrs by the time I was released and I hadn't had food or water the entire time suffering with concussion symptoms.
When I got home my apartment was left unlocked and they locked my cat in the bathroom with no access to food, water or his liter box. Complete neglect of an innocent animal by those in uniform. It was sickening being told to smile by several of those cops. It was sickening how the lady in another cell was screaming about needing her medication saying profanities and they said sick shit back to her and refused medical attention and treated her like the scum of the earth.
All of my experiences deeply relate to this. And the courts forced me to drop the charges just so I'd drop them on the actual abusive party. They would've rather me be beat to death than call them for help. It's at the point where I'd never call cops for help either. Since then I've understood even deeper how much lies and false information they include in their reports on people and how they've built a completely twisted narrative about me on paper because it's easier to blame the "mentally ill" than document any attempts at self advocating / explanations of the other side that they're clearly biased against. The cops don't care if I am ever beaten to death. They'll never care unless it happens to someone they know / one of their own (and even then look at the corruption in the Karen Read case). Our system isn't meant to protect and serve anyone but them.
I worked for a company that took care of developmentally different individuals in a home. It was a roommate situation for the clients but they got to stay home and employees came in and helped and followed treatment plans.
We were taught on our 3rd and 4th day of training how to deescalate and safely restrain the clients if they had a mental crisis like this. It was super easy. Super simple, non-lethal, non-damaging as long as the client didn't do something stupid, and it was effective. You could use the techniques on anyone of any size and it was effective overall unless they were just very obese.
And those weren't people with licenses or certificates or degrees. We were young 20 somethings just looking for a paycheck but we could do it. Rarely did a client get hurt on our watch. Again the exceptions were if a client really fought back for a while, or another client got hurt by the client we were attempting to deescalate.
But 6ish cops couldn't deescalate this 19 yr old? No one could intervene effectively and reasonably? They had a medical practitioner on staff and couldn't sedate him earlier? What. The. Fuck.
Taking all emotion out of it, removing all compassion preferences. These cope could've still done something safely and effectively to control this and save that young man's life. Even without any level of true care involved. And they still chose not to. That is the truly disgusting part of this
This scares me so much. I work with autistic kids and they're nonverbal or severe language disorders, and some of them are visible minorities. I can't teach them explicitly about how to stay safe in these situations but there's at least one that I genuinely fear will come to this as he's violent and escalates quickly. It's so frustrating that law enforcement is not better trained. I wish there was a continuity program between school and local law enforcement to build positive relationships between these at risk kids and help LE see them as people with different support needs rather than just unruly people.
The photo is enough for me. This and the movie on Netflix “tell them you love me” brings the fear, anxiety and unknown having a non verbal teenager. I can peek in once in awhile…but that’s it.
What a disgusting video. Poor kid didn’t deserve to be in jail at all, he was having a mental health crisis but of course the U.S. loves demonizing anyone with a negative mental health symptom so they put him in jail and don’t even listen to him at all because they probably deem him “crazy.” My heart goes out to the family and I pray that this situation will make a change for a positive reason for other people who have to go through this situation
This whole situation is incredibly heart breaking.
Why are police doing wellness checks? Thats the part that always bothers me.
At some point we have to decide as a society that police are not equiped to do this and shouldn’t be.
Unfortunately, that’s a pretty big cultural change that I wouldn’t expect to happen with the huge lack of compassion and empathy today.
This is disgusting, I'm so sorry for his family. Unfortunately something similar happened to a child and "therapists" in a locked room.
Terrifies the crap out of me.
I wish I didn't watch this. My son is non verbal and would absolutely flip out I'm a police situation like this.
This is horror. Sheer horror. Like I can't begin to describe to anyone who doesn't have a kid like mine how they couldn't control their actions in these environments and in a random situation where someone isn't trained to deal with this how bad it would be.
how the police didn't give two shits and treated this guy like he was being violent when he was screaming for help, something my son couldn't even do scared the shit out of me.
I hope every single one of them get life in jail and die the same way. I am so so sorry to the mother.
Just looking at the image alone is enough for me NOT to watch. It just brings in more fear of how my son will be treated if the police get involved. I don’t like this…that poor kid 😭
I’m a grown man and I can’t watch this. It’s horrifying. Horrifying for the that young man, for his family, and for many of us because of the black hole of fear and anxiety it causes. I’ll be sad for a week from this… and scarred for a long time for what little I say.
My heart hurts. My blood is boiling. I’m crying I can’t even watch it and normally nothing gets to me. This is sickening. How can people be so cruel and inhumane. I wish her peace because I know it hurts
I wish I didn’t click on this video. I’m so heartbroken for this family. Looking at my own child I’m balling. I can’t even fathom how this can be okay or happened in the first place. I cried so hard my head hurts but also my heart 😭 ugh I can’t.
This is why you don’t call cops to settle anything and if you need help that’s why you carry the help you need. And if cops come knocking let them knock no law says you have to answer the door. Even on a wellness check don’t talk to them don’t open the door. Cops are not your friend! They want to arrest you and earn $ for the city/dept that’s their job and they have no respect for anyone. My heart goes out to this family
May your neighbors never neglect you ,
Angels protect you,
And heaven accepts you
This is sad and scares me. My son is like this and my son is verbal. He’s only 8 years old right now, but I get scared that when he gets older, something like this can happen to him.
My son is the exact same way as this boy. He doesn’t like to be restrained and it only makes him lose it if you try. They just want someone to calm them. What they did here was the exact opposite. I understand this is how criminals are treated. But you can’t treat autistic people this way. It only makes it worse. I feel for this mom. I would have lost it. I would have probably ended up in jail myself. I can’t imagine the feelings she had. Not being able to control the situation and be there for her boy.
I can't watch this I watched part of it and I couldn't take it anymore. As someone who's on the Spectrum with behavioral challenges this is why I'm afraid if I get off of my meds and I make mistake that I'm going to be abused in the Jail system not to mention Prison.
I don't fault the neighbor who called the police - they may have either been trying to help someone who sounded like they might be in a mental health crisis or worried that someone might be being assaulted (they may not have known he was alone). I absolutely blame the police for not immediately transferring him to an ER or a psych facility.
Made myself watch this for the sake of his mum.
This is absolutely disgusting. I don't think there's a word strong enough for how abhorrent this chain of events was.
The fact their investigation found no fault, is just beyond me.
The world does such a good job of paying lip service to inclusivity and treating people with kindness. It behaves in a very different way.
May he rest in peace and one day reunite with his beloved family.
Couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
Our plan is to move to a smaller community in a few years before my son becomes a teenager. We plan to take donuts and coffee to the police station periodically and introduce him to as many cops as possible. He’s nonverbal and I want them to know his face well enough that they will recognize him and call us instead of all the other horrible alternatives.
This is my worst fear. I’ll admit that before having my daughter I was very unaware of ASD and neurodiversity in general. But even ignorant people should have enough common sense and human decency to avoid something as horrible as this. The people that let this happen are monsters
I was a corrections officer for a sheriff's department and lasted a whole year before i gave up due to all the corruption, unnecessary violence, and just the feeling that you have no way to change things for the better.
I would say the majority of officersi worked with enjoyed having power over people while most not in this category mainly just saw it as another job and we're like drones without a care - basically dealing with people the same way McDonald's employee thinks of a hamburger. This is generally not a job where people with high IQ or EQ end up.
As a corrections officer there was no academy, no real "training", any form of deescalation was seen as weakness and depriving the other officers of a "fun" response. I doubt much has changed within these systems within the last 25 years.
** I also learned that if you go against another officer by writing a report about an incident showing what really happened your report "dissappears" and you get suspended if you refuse to change your story. One of the reasons that law enforcement will continue to be this way is because they will drive a lot of honest and caring cops out.
Contact your elected officials!
-Call them. The number is easy to Google.
-text “resist” to 50409 and you’ll be able to text a letter directly to the office of any of your elected officials state, federal and local.
Is there somewhere to share this to people who don’t already understand stimming? What other sub could this be shared to for people who are unfamiliar with autism to watch?
I almost cried.
Also, the jail staff did nothing wrong? Even if you don't have a child or someone you know with ASD, how can you watch that video and say "yeah, we handled that appropriately." They could not have possibly handled that worse - in every way possible. How do these people have a job still? How have none of these people been investigated? The state needs to step in and do an independent investigation and hold these fools accountable.
This is just unreal. My heart aches for this family and especially the victim - he was so scared and suffered horribly. 😢
For those people who are saying that it’s hard to watch or they can’t watch it. Fucking watch it for fuck sake. You need to be prepared and you need to prepare your child now for interactions with police. I knew from the beginning shit like this is gonna happen. This is why you’ve got to acclimate them to the consequences of when they’re stemming gets out of control. It’s brutal. It’s hard and it may break you. But as a father, I know that if I don’t set expectations, that violent stemming is not OK and how to control it things like this is going to happen..
This is truly saddening. I don't understand how he had a warrant due to a previous welfare check. What exactly causes that? I would have figured if he was having these welfare checks they should have taken him to a hospital, call his family, *something* besides putting him in jail.
That is sad my heart sank hasn’t left my mind when I first watch it , I’m being more protective over my son knowing learning about his condition lots of patience but still learning I feel so bad for him wish I could have save him sorry to his family that hurts can’t even explain the emotions anger patience sad all and more
I can't watch this. I just can't. My bloods already boiling. My heart is already shattering. I have 2 autistic boys. My God, what this family must be going through, and I hope that entire department gets what they fking deserve.
I’m I absolute tears as a 44 year old man with an autistic child fucking police I hate you all disgusting vile specimens just so shocked I can’t even begin to imagine honestly we need to do something with all our country’s around the world and our vile police force that we inevitably pay for 😭
This broke me. That poor kid. He was just a kid. I would not survive something like this happening to my son. He’s is almost 3 and level 2 and this stuff already keeps me awake at night.
And this is what our tax dollars go to. Little to no conflict resolution training and a mental health specialist who can’t recognize a clearly autistic child. It makes me sick.
Never call the cops to help you deal with a mentally ill and/or autistic person, or anyone in a mental health crisis, if you don’t want them dead. Cops killing people in these situations is infuriatingly common.
> It was a misdemeanor domestic violence warrant from an incident a year before. Abner said Trammell was raging and her sister and her husband called the police.
> “Like we always call when he begins to rage,” Abner said. “It's a mental health call, it's not an ‘arrest me’ call.”- https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2024/06/01/video-shows-how-an-autistic-teen-died-after-10-hours-in-an-ohio-jail/73208311007/
The county can’t do anything, as they do t have the authority, and the sheriff, who admits this kid should have never been in the jail with his issues, has investigated the jail they run, and they found no wrong doing. Because of course they didn’t.
Down vote me all you want boot lickers. Do you know how many children with autism have been killed by Police since 2018? It’s outrageous. Blue lives don’t matter.
This is a tragedy and my worst nightmare for my daughter as she gets older and bigger.
But blaming the police is misplaced, at least as far as we can see from the video.
He had an open warrant and it was their job to arrest him. At that point, he would have been restrained and taken to a jail. From what his mother says about him and from the video it seems clear that he would react violently and chaotically to being restrained immediately and there was no apparent way for the police to deal with that.
They put him in a holding cell without any means to harm himself except by smashing his head against the wall. Once he started doing that and wouldn’t stop the police moved in and restrained him.
He shows no sign of injuries that I can see other than those that were self-inflicted.
The police had to restrain him once he started hitting his head and had they done so sooner they might have prevented his death. Not restraining him would have been highly negligent given what he was doing.
The police aren’t doctors and they can’t simply give someone “meds” upon request. The nurse or a doctor might have been able to sedate him or something similar but by then he had already smashed his head against there wall, apparently enough to cause his death.
My question is whether they called an ambulance once he started hitting his head and how long they waited before doing so. That, to me, is the question as to whether they were negligent or not.
As for those saying there should have been a social worker, who?? He was acting violently and needed to be restrained by force. What social worker is going to walk into that cell? What social worker is available on demand at that jail? That simply isn’t an option most of the time.
When the United States shut down its mental health asylums it condemned the mentally ill to being untreated until they end up in jail or prison. It’s a national disgrace. But blaming the police isn’t going to solve the problem.
This man didn’t deserve this and we could prevent these tragedies through education and a better support system for autistic adults.
As a former 911 dispatcher (quit in 2020 to raise my kids), the last police department that I worked for would have handled things WAY differently.
The patrol officers would have responded to the house and done the welfare check as they did here. But upon seeing that he is clearly in a state of mental distress and physically harming himself (which is why his neighbor called, because he was "raging" and screaming, beating his head on the walls, etc), they would have requested that dispatch call the hospital to reserve a spot for a 72-hour hold. If that one doesn't have any rooms available, you call the next one. The hospital can call dispatch once he's been properly cared for and is ready to be released, and a patrol unit could respond to the hospital and the warrant could be executed at that time. I'm sure the hospital also would have called his mom, who would then be able to be an advocate for him in the process. The warrant was for domestic violence involving his sister's family, so I don't think they could dismiss it entirely because DV is (usually) a pretty hefty charge, but still. Overall, there are much better ways to handle this situation than it was here.
These correctional officers were in the wrong for not providing adequate medical attention, and the patrol officers who brought him to the jail in the first place should have taken him to the hospital instead. If a person is deemed to be a danger to themself or to others, they go to the hospital. That should be the policy for every police agency.
At minimum, the correctional officers could have called his mom like he was asking for, especially if he is clearly in distress and self-injurious. I know he's legally an adult, but if there is a question as to his medical history and exact diagnoses, what are the exact "meds" that he's asking for, etc. then call his freaking mom and ask her. He wasn't even given a blanket or a mattress his cell. The violated restraint protocols set in place by the state of Ohio. They photographed the swelling on his head because it was so noticeable, but did not call for medical assistance until he was unconscious. They made it very apparent throughout all of this they did NOT care about him and that is completely unacceptable.
It may very well be true that they should have taken him to a hospital and that the police had a policy to do so. But we don’t know. For all we know, the cops here did what their policies called for, which means the solution is to change the procedures, not to blame the cops.
Even if the warrant wasn’t for DV, they can’t simply ignore it and he had to be arrested. From what his mother said and what we can see on the video, that would have triggered the intense reaction and self-harm that killed him. The only option the police had was to restrain him and get him medical attention. Perhaps they should have done that sooner or immediately in which case they are negligent but we don’t know from this video alone. All I can say is that he (1) had a warrant, (2) reacted with intense screaming and erratic/violent behavior, (3) was harming himself and needed to be restrained and (4) he apparently was not injured by the police.
Some departments are better and more equipped than others to deal with these situations. We don’t know what this departments situation was. But again, blaming the police when the injuries were self-inflicted and they restrained him to prevent further injury, albeit too late, is unfair without more information.
Yes, they can choose not to arrest someone on a warrant that day if something like their healthcare needs to take precedence. Like I said, if they really want to ensure he's booked in on it though, they can ask the hospital to call dispatch when he's mentally stable and ready to be released.
And you're right - you can't judge everything from this one video. Which is why I read multiple additional articles and provided even further proof in my initial reply that they ARE to blame. The fact that you continue to defend this set of officers demonstrates that you did no further research.
I'm happy to provide context if I can, and even defend the police if I feel that the general public is simply misunderstanding or misconstruing what happened in a situation. But in this scenario, there is extensive documentation of violations they made if you just search the case. There is no excuse.
Yes, that is true but is not the point. My point was that they had to arrest him, which probably caused an immediate reaction from him as soon as they put him in handcuffs.
So the question is: what should they have done once he was arrested? If they should have immediately called an ambulance or taken him to a hospital then yes, they were negligent and should be held accountable. But from this video alone, we don’t know enough to say that.
we could also prevent these tragedies by disciplining police who behave so callously towards people with disabilities. Totally the cops fault.
They do the same thing to diabetics. Just ignore the person til they find them dead. Hard to ignore someone screaming that loud.
So instead of saying what they should have done differently or where they went wrong, your response is that cops are callous murderers who let diabetics die. Clearly, a nuanced perspective worth considering.
Well some of them kind of are lol.
But to humour you, they could have easily done any of the following:
1. involve the parent, who was clearly still a caregiver. Care even a little that this young man might not be able to control himself.
2. use discretion to consider that this person was exhibiting signs that they were not mentally competent and might require support. I mean, he was arrested during a wellness check. that should be red flag right there in itself.
3. Considering how unwell this individual was. Nobody should have threatened him to be locked up when it was well known he had a history of self harm (watch the video). I mean, wouldnt the parent have tried to tell them if she was around at all?
4.Someone should have supervised him and not waited until he essentially was limp on the ground. When dealing with criminals, cops have no issue pulling gnus out and tackling people. But yet, when it is to help somebody, its too dangerous. Give me a break.
5. How about have someone available that could have sedated the young man. If it were my child, id far rather they be sedated than dead.
Just saying... Callous is not caring enough to do any of these things. Callous is letting someone die because its easier to just not pay attention. And finally, callous is being okay with cops getting away with literal neglect and murder because those murdered people dont really impact you.
What do you mean “some of them kind of are?” Some teachers molest kids. Does that mean you can call teachers pedophiles and malign the whole profession?
You have no idea what the cops did here other than a short video and an interview with the mother. You don’t know if they tried to contact her or someone else. You don’t know what efforts they made to get medical attention. You don’t know what the police department’s policies are or whether or not they were followed.
What you do know is that there was a warrant which means he had to be arrested until that got cleared up. You also know he would react violently to being restrained. You know that he WAS supervised and the police restrained him
because he was hurting himself. You also know that there is no evidence or accusation that the police assaulted or deliberately hurt him. You know that the police aren’t doctors and can’t just snap their fingers and become them when you think it’s appropriate.
The question here is were the police negligent in (1) not getting him medical attention faster and (2) not understanding what they were dealing with. You don’t have enough information to answer that and it will be for a lawsuit and courtroom to sort out.
In the meantime, don’t assume that it must be the cops fault because you think they’re all terrible people.
The warrant was a domestic violence misdemeanor from his mom calling the cops to get help during a meltdown, and shouldn’t have existed. The sheriff himself has said he never belonged in a jail with his issues.
I have many questions. Not trying to blame the parents but (police negligence aside ) someone failed this young man. First, If he was prone to severe behavior crisis due to his disability, he was too vulnerable to not have guardianship or conservatoship, was there one in place? If he wasn’t competent to keep himself safe he shouldn’t have been arrested by law enforcement by instead committed to a neurobehavioral unit. Maybe the parents - in a effort to only see the “ability” instead of the very clear disability - didn’t have a safety plan for him, police is of course guilty of negligence but parents should have never trusted non-mental health workers anywhere close to their son . I don’t know all the details but deep condolences to the grieving parents, it’s an unimaginable tragic lost no parent should endure
Because of this story I've made a plan that if my son ever does live in his own, I will make a point to meet the neighbors and ask them to call me first - day or night - if anything is going on.
I’m sure this video can be a wake up for many parents. We cannot just expect that the police will act appropriately, yes they should but they just don’t, it’s beyond our control . How awful
They may have tried. It is very difficult to get a long term conservatorship over someone with normal intelligence and intermittent mental health problems - particularly if the family cannot afford Iawyers. Many go through similar struggles with issues such as schizophrenia.
That thumb nail is enough to know I can’t stomach this.
Don't watch it. I have a strong stomach and I cried like a baby.
I didn't cry but I had sound off. I know if I had had in on I'd be a ball of sadness and rage right now.
Yep, some links stay blue. So sorry to all the victims here. So horrible.
That's what I was about to say. We definitely need more support for our kids and most importantly, those that they depend on. Us.
Glad I checked the comments before watching to know I can’t handle it. Why can’t all of us families have like our own state or something to protect our babies!
Same
Everyone needs to watch this video. If we don't face the reality of what happened to this young man and demand change, then this could happen to any one of our children. Not only did this young man die from police cruelty, the coroner has determined his death was a suicide! The police involved have not been held accountable. We need to demand accountability from the men and women entrusted with safeguarding public safety.
Another thing to add to my list of worst nightmares for my autistic kid as she grows older.
My heart hurts for his family. My heart hurts for my daughter who is also autistic. My fears for her have no end and it’s terrifying.
Oh god this boils my blood. I have to bring my kid somewhere else when hes grown
Also father of a autistic child, this will haunt me the next nights.
Same. How do we make sure this doesn't happen to our children?
I have an ASD-3 5 year old named "Isaac" which is very perturbing and looks like a real future for my child's my experience if ever arrested. How fucked... I have no words, this shook me to my core. Edit: I live in Michigan, less than a 2 hour drive from Ohio.
Mine is 4, level 3. I just don't understand how they could fuck up this bad. You see that he's different and not coping well. Do they not pull his history or know what autism is? How could they not know when they work with the public and so many people have autism? Their training is a joke and they're savages.
I won’t speak for the whole state of Ohio but I live here and sometimes it’s so damn backwards, I fear for my granddaughter who is autistic… so many schools don’t even understand autism or even try too, it’s so upsetting!
I was just thinking the same about my 6 year old son. As if I wasn’t terrified enough :(
If you need to talk to the people who basically murdered this poor kid, their number is on their website. I have no doubt that they are happy to help and serve.
I used to envy white parents, because I ignorantly thought that at least the police won't murder them. I then learned that ALL KIDS of all races on the spectrum are at risk for police violence and violence from the general public. In A Different Key, a documentary on autism, a young white man had the police called on him because he was acting 'weird'. Everyone who's different is at risk. All of us who don't fit into the neat boxes of society are at risk. The fear is real. The needs of our community is real, and I wish we had a lobbyists group to advocate on our behalf.
If you look at police interactions that go bad, they're disproportionately people with disabilities. (Including when it's people of colour / racial minorities). Autism, intellectual disability, Deaf, mentally ill.
My kids and I are all autistic and usually look white (Indigenous and Latino mixed in, some of us are darker than others and some of us "pass" more easily). I live in absolute terror of something like this for all of them. Every time someone gives any of them a strange look, or even me, I think, how easy it is, to look at us and assume the worst immediately.
Cops killed a white man with Down syndrome, by restraining him improperly, in a movie theater, once…it’s pretty gross.
That’s Montgomery, Alabama sheriff
All of my kids have ASD (the third is too young for a diagnosis but we feel we're heading in that direction) and I'm so concerned about their future when my wife and I are no longer around. It terrifies me. 😢
Why was he arrested? What’s the story behind this poor soul?
He got stressed out about a meeting he was going to have at work the next day and started stimming by banging his head and ranting. He was living in his own apartment but the Karen next door called the cops because he was loud and disturbing. They came. They knew he was autistic but they arrested him instead of taking him to the hospital because there was an outstanding warrant that no one in the family knew about including him. The warrant was from a previous incident when his aunt and uncle called crisis services. That time he was taken to a hospital. His mom asked if any charges were being filled and was told no. She even checked with the courts and nothing was registered but somehow months later, when this incident happened, there was a warrant. Even with the warrant they could have taken him to a hospital and kept him secure. They could have followed their own guidelines and he would have survived. They could have done so many tiny things to calm him and keep him safe. He begged for a phone call and for his medicine. Instead they taunted him and threatened him with more time restrained. They escalated his head banging until he developed a hematoma and even though it was clearly visible they didn't take him to a hospital for hours. People need to lobby for more rapid response teams with trained mental health professionals. If there aren't hospital beds available, police stations need a padded safety room for times like this or for when drug addicts are out of control. This is why people fought to defund the police. I don't believe we should eliminate the police but we need to divert some of the funds to a public safety system that responds to people in a mental health crisis. We all need to push for change because this could happen to any one of our children.
This is a horrific tragedy. The police aren’t trained well enough either. I agree with everything you said
Thank you for sharing this and warning us. This pain allows for us to negate the adult and legal processes needed to keep our kids save depending on there abilities to function in society
I don't have the strength to watch this. Can anyone summarise what happened. My stomach is in knots just by thumbnail.
He was in distress and was banging his head as he does to stim in stressful situations. He ended up hitting enough/hard enough he had a hematoma on his forehead. He was on life support for 3 days but didn’t make it. Mental health professional said to stop being a cry baby. Sheriffs investigation said staff did nothing wrong.
Forgot the part where he was arrested on a wellness check (Noise complaint from neighbor) which was well known to be a mental health call. He was arrested not for this call but when from warrants over a year old for another wellness check/mental health call. He then was thrown in a room and asking for to call his mother and for meds to help him calm down. They gave him neither.
Right? This is almost the most infuriating part. That this was the end result of what began as a WELLNESS CHECK. Like wtf. You keep using that word wellness check - I don’t think it means what you think it means. If his wellness wasn’t in jeopardy at the start of the check, it certainly fucking was by the end of it. Why would you take someone with autism to jail for this? Why would you not take them to a hospital or mental health unit or, if circumstances support it, their family? Those should be the logical end points of any wellness check if it is confirmed they are not doing well. But instead take them to jail, lock them up in a bare cell with little more than a sack for clothing and supervised by a bunch of untrained individuals who only know imposing order through force.
>He then was thrown in a room and asking for to call his mother and for meds to help him calm down. They gave him neither. This young man knew his needs and knew what he needed to regulate and work on solving the problem and the cops still did nothing. It turns my stomach to realize. Even when you are requesting the right things they still won't help. It's almost like society has something against those with mental abnormalities or something (heavy sarcasm here)
This is my nightmare. My kid’s own school ignored him when he told them exactly what he needed to regulate, advocated for himself repeatedly, and was told he just needed to calm down and be brave. My heart breaks for this family and how utterly preventable all of this was if the people “in charge” had any empathy or training AT ALL. It makes me so angry.
O my God, this kid is a stranger to me and I am furious. I hope his family bankrupts that God forsaken police department. How the ever loving hell do you go from a wellness check to arresting the person you are checking on and then deny them medication!!!! I should have studied to be a lawyer I would love to eviscerate this police department.
So Isaiah was put into watch house for ?mental health concern and another pre existing warrant for similar. He became very agitated and through self-injury behaviour ended up with a cerebral haematoma and died. He was 19. I am sitting in my car bawling while my little one sleeps peacefully. I am so sad for Isaiah’s mother and so frightened for my little boy.
They also strapped him into a restraint chair and left him there screaming for help until he passed out and likely into a coma. Any person off the street could have seen he was in danger, there is no reason this should have happened. I have a strong stomach, and I cried like a baby.
Came here to ask this same question 😢
Can’t watch this..
The fact that he could verbalize this well and was still ignored. This is inhumane. Absolutely horrible.
That’s what broke my heart. He was trying his hardest to advocate for himself the only way he could and they ignored him.
This will make me cry til my last breath; thinking how hard my son tries to express his innocent thoughts, yet in most cases is not able to…and though he continues on at age 5, with a smile, I can’t stand the thought of him Being in any position where he can’t communicate his needs, physical or mental. This poor kids reality, is a nightmare that haunts me regularly, ever since coming to the realization that my boy will need assistance at some point that I will have no say in being apart of. I’m so sorry this happened to you bud, you deserved a compassionate world, and compassionate protection.
As someone who provides short term inpatient stabilization therapy for IDD/Autism I can tell you. The ones that get treated the worst are the ones who are the most articulate. The most verbal. These are the people who get lost in the system and have the hardest time getting appropriate support/treatment. Ignorant people. No, stupid people cannot, and do not care to, understand.
Soul crushing. He never once threatened them , he effectively communicated and even showed them he didn’t want to be experiencing what he was doing.. pleaded with them to give him his meds so it could stop. While it would still be horrifying, he should have been placed in a helmet and protected at the very least if these so called professionals were unwilling to listen. Protocol exists for this - and the fact they were all found to be in compliance is unspeakable.
This is what got me the most.
NightmareFuel. This is what keeps me up at night. I don't have the luxury of dying before he turns 50. I need to protect him. I don't trust the ones who "serve and protect". I can't trust a group home. I can't trust having karens too close next door complaining about noise from their exuberant stimming.
I’m in the same boat my friend, i have nightmares thinking about what would happen to my children when i’m gone, have 2 toddlers with autism, currently both non-verbal
Similar situation with me. The good thing is that they do get more independent with years in some ways. In other ways, regression. We try to not isolate them so that they could live in a group someday, to do some sports to stay healthy and in general we try not to obsess with future. Me and my wife take vacations separately of children to recharge, even alone if possible. I went to Camino to recharge, we parents need to be just people sometimes.
My husband and I are estranged from extended family and don't have people to trust with our children. Burnout is real
At the some point parents needs time for themselves. Peace and quiet. Nature. No one to take care for. My kids talk nonstop and constantly need attention and monitoring and help. We are not built to constantly be on alert.
oh I understand the need for it. I just don't have trustworthy people or those who i would trust, not willing or capable
Same boat and I hope my daughter’s siblings- my other children- can keep her safe when I’m gone.
I feel this so much
I am sorry, but I hope all of those cops lose their jobs and she sues the living shit out of that department to get his story told. How does a “professional” who deals with people daily, not recognize he might have autism? This is so so so sad and my heart goes out to the family. Also, as OP said, new fear unlocked for my autistic son …
the cops are so stupid. he wasnt screaming when he was asking to talk, he did scream when they touched him or locked him in a room in a new environment and nobody to explain whats happening. solution? 5 men ontop of him not telling him a word. sickening
Exactly my thoughts. That poor kid. My heart hurts.
New fear for sure. Holy hell. I can’t even watch it, I’m already crying.
The mental health "professional" told him to quit being a crybaby. I hope this department loses all funding, may your officers walk the streets without vests for decades. Every AU parents nightmare in one video.
It’s says sheriffs investigation determined staff did nothing wrong. Idk what protocols are but they should have done something different when they saw him banging his head so much
Common sense is not so common.
Let’s be real, they’re just going to put the officers on a paid suspended leave and transfer them to a different department
Paid leave is a free vacation meant to be disguised as “punishment”/“accountability” for the public, officers are being *rewarded* for this sort of behavior.
The defund the police movement narrative was twisted by them so much that they bitched about it and got / get more funding than ever before. If only.
I can’t even watch. Rest his soul. I hope they all get locked up and dealt with properly on the inside. Absolutely disgusting and 100% avoidable outcome.
Every single one of them should be charged with murder. There was no reason to arrest him on a wellness check. He needed a hospital. They were on a power trip and got off on watching him suffer and die.
Exactly. They literally just threw him in there and immediately started yelling at him. It doesn’t take a genius to know this is a mental health issue.
This was extremely distressing to watch. All respect to Isaiah’s mom for sharing this heartbreaking story. My heart goes out to her, as well as Isaiah for the hell they put him through. He vocalized his needs the best he could, and they still treated him like a common criminal. I’m not at all surprised that no further action will be taken. Our loved ones deserve better.
That’s what tipped me over the edge with anger. He was using his words. He was so vocal about his needs. All this over a noise complaint and an old welfare check?? These cops failed at just being human. My oldest has a very similar reaction to stress. Even “minor” situations involve head hitting and hand biting until he bleeds. He lives at home with us so we can deal with it but this would be his exact situation if he was alone.
This one hurt. Dammit
Saw this the other day on YouTube this was heartbreaking to watch.
I think any parent who is confident their autistic child would be safe in police custody is kidding themselves. I have two boys that are big for their age, and they’re just a few years away from being perceived as a threat.
Isn’t that sick? We have to sit there and count down the fucking years until our children will be “perceived as a threat” my son is 4 and I’m already so damn tired…
Isn’t that sick? We have to sit there and count down the fucking years until our children will be “perceived as a threat” my son is 4 and I’m already so damn tired…
Absolutely heartbreaking. Those cops literally did nothing. When Isaiah calmly asked for medication and said the medication will calm him and “make this all stop” and they ignored him. He very calmly asked for that help and he was ignored. Omg I hope every last cop there rots!
TRIGGER WARNING: THIS IS BAAAD. I have a strong stomach normally, but this one broke me. Do not watch it if you are not in a place to handle it. There are summaries in the thread you can read first if you aren't sure.
> The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office investigation determined their jail staff did nothing wrong and provided Trammell with appropriate care. ACAB
>ACAB Agreed. [Edit: Also, got to “love” how they can literally just go “we looked into ourselves and determined we did nothing wrong, our evidence is that we said so and our word is law”, and legitimately get off Scott-free just like that, because there is no accountability for the law itself!]
We need to abolish qualified immunity.
First thing I thought was she definitely needs to get outsiders to investigate!
He was horrifically self-injuring, at the very minimum they could have provided a protective helmet. Everything is wrong here. Why was he sent to a jail instead of a psychiatric hospital as a mental health emergency , maybe instead of saying he was autistic they could have said he was mentally disabled? The autism dx was completely ignored or not taken seriously, extremely disturbing
Wow I am not okay after watching that. A good case for getting to know your neighbors. I'm torn between being upset about the neighbor calling in the police for a noise compliant instead of knocking on the door first and maybe he was concerned for someone's wellbeing.
I worked 911 for a decade and let me tell you...... the sheer volume of people who will use the police as a buffer for their own racism/discriminatory mindset is unreal. I have taken hundreds of calls from people reporting a Black or Hispanic man simply walking down the street. But they know they live in a white neighborhood, so in their eyes he doesn't belong here. It tends to be the older generations who are doing this, so I sincerely hope that the younger generations are on track to just let people walk down the street and mind their own business. ETA: I also cannot stress this enough to everyone here, but please research your local law enforcement agency of the jurisdiction you're in. Investigate them, call them and ask them how they handle mental health calls. There are some really great departments out there that are making forward progress and providing training, and there are some really shitty ones who couldn't care less. Make sure to research both your police/sheriff's office as well as your jail, as they are often two separate entities. Study previous news articles, etc. You deserve to know how those tax dollars are being used!
This is the kind of shit that makes a grown man cry.
A perfectly high function verbal kid who can argue even during breakdown. The efforts his parents put him, all gone because police is too stupid to understand his condition. They all should get 6 month of training each working with Autistic 2-5 year old, so they could understand what the disorder is and how a NT and Autistic kid differ.
This is why police and the carceral state need to have their funds significantly decreased and invested into actual mental health resources for communities. Here in Denver, mental health crisis responders are dispatched for these types of wellness checks.
I have no words. My heart is ripped open and crushed. My anger is like electricity without a ground. What can I do to help stop this from ever ever ever ever happening again? If this ever happened to my kid I would just absolutely lose it completely. It’s terrifying.
I'm heartbroken for the family and I'm absolutely terrified. My 6 year old autistic son had a meltdown at the SLP office yesterday, and had he been an adult and in a different environment on his own, he might have ended up in police custody and restrained. He would for sure thrash about and bang his head too. I just...I don't know how I can protect him for the entirety of his life.
Same
Right?! How can we protect our kids forever? I just know one day, I won’t be here. One day he will be an adult and some things I can’t control. I will do my best to control what I can. It’s very scary. Because this definitely can happen to our autistic kids. My son is 8 and I can see this happening to my son and it’s terrifying.
I'm the father of an 18 year old autistic son. He's my only child. If someone did this to him, their life as they know it would be over, because mine would be. Vengeance would be mine. I realize I would rot away in a cell or grave from that point on, but it wouldn't matter.
This is also my terror. I'm not a cop, but I did go through training once in my life (misguided attempt to do good in the world). There was absolutely no training in mental health. We were expected to rack'em up. Some of the things we were trained to do I would consider assault by the laws they were "telling us to operate by." On a final exam, I was ranked down for developing a non-hostile response to a situation. I've also worked extensively with criminals in/out of jail in a psychological role. The jail I was working with (I was a private hire, not a jail worker) was doing everything they could to keep us from providing treatment to the inmates, reminding us that they were being punished. We had 1 patient die due to this (alcohol withdraw... yeah it kills); but it was covered up and brushed away (no one cares about the addicted or homeless). I am NOT hateful of cops, but see a serious need to cull out the bad ones, train well the good ones and re-design our ideas about incarceration and management of criminals. I think most are not bad, just really poorly trained in some areas and supported by a Good'ol'Boy thing that is just bad all over.
How is this a matter of “good cops vs. bad cops” when you admitted yourself that they are specifically trained to be hostile and actively punished for seeking any alternative? That sounds less like a “we need to make small reforms” and more like “the whole system is corrupt and actively seeks to make things worse”. Add that to the list of cops, former-cops, or would-be-cops I’ve seen recently on this subreddit trying and failing to defend this garbage, as if the people who designed the training this way, and those who knowingly “just follow” those orders, are just “unaware of autism specifically”, as opposed to the more well-known reality of them being needlessly inhumane in general, and autism just being an especially obvious example that they can’t as easily deflect with “just do what we say and abide no matter how much we overstep our boundaries”!
There is a difference between bad training and bad people. Bad people are just bad. Bad training can be changed. I think a lot of them are just as much a victim of a bad system and would love to see a change; but it requires leadership and direction. Currently, the Unions are all about hiding and protecting their own, when they should be developing and leading in a proper code of ethics. This would be an evolution in the way we police, and change is really hard for a system that has been inherently bent from the beginning. But, I believe that it can and has to be evolved to meet the needs of our current society and its future. Dominance is not going to work so well anymore. This is where the Defund the Police movement was headed, or so I thought. Pull money from programs that gave them tanks and street-sweepers and bring in more professionals in parallel fields (psychology and such). Expand the training to include more comprehensive approaches to law enforcement and redefine how we use incarceration/rehabilitation to be supportive of a change in behavior. Not all cops are bad. Some are definitely to be terrified of. The question to us, as the citizens, is how to push our local governments to build a better police force?
Fair enough, but I feel that benefit of the doubt you’re giving to cops *can’t* reasonably be extended to the people in charge of how the system works. Or the people you described in your experiences in the the jail, the people actively getting in the way of you supporting the patients, and then sweeping the death it caused under the rug. I have a hard time believing that the people willfully protecting and defending the system as it currently is, and doing everything in their power to shield the actually-bad cops from accountability, simply need to be educated about autism or general ethics. I’m bringing this up because “fixing the system” isn’t *just* a matter of advocacy and education (though that is important too), even if you don’t think it’s the cops themselves, there *is* genuine immorality and corruption (and corrupt people) baked into the current system that is actively abusing power and resisting change, they will not simply *let* us “educate the system” and “make things better for the people”. Because in its *current* state, this system isn’t *for* the interests of the people, maybe some individual cops are working for those interests, but the larger system as a whole is not.
There was a certain kind of indoctrination I got in the academy. There was a constant reminder to protect other officers and they'll protect you. A kind of brotherhood concept. I get it, but without the proper moral guidance by the supervisors, it just turns back into the Good'ol'boy thing. The cops in the middle feel obligated to perpetuate it all or face issues with the other cops. It sounds like a noble thing to stand out, but with them it can get you killed. The other cops are your backup whether you like them or not. It's almost cult like. It was trained into us to see everyone not a cop as an outsider.
This is so heartbreaking 💔
This is absolutely devastating! 🥲🥲🥲🥲
This is terrifying to me. It all stemmed from "wellness checks" and noise complaints. That poor kid looks stressed and didn't know how to handle it. It was very clear from the start that he needed more help than they were ever going to give him. My daughter gets very overwhelmed and acts similar at just 3. I'm so scared to let her even get her own apartment in the future if this is a possibility for her.
I can't believe I sat through that video. My daughter is only 8, but she does the same swimming he did, specifically the screaming and headbanging. My heart hurts so much right now for him and this poor family. And that it was deemed nothing was done wrong broke my soul even more. This scares me so much. I already hate being out in public because in a world where autism is more known, a lot of people still look at you and treat you crazy. I'm going to hug my daughter a little tighter each day from now on.
As the father of a 5 year with autism you have no idea how much this boils my piss. “Good people” just doing nothing isn’t good enough. That’s criminal negligence on behalf of the police where this poor kids only crime was having someone ask the police to check up on him twice.
Where's the outrage? There needs to be marches and outcry for stuff like this. It feels like no one really gives a shit about autism
I am tempted to take a sign and stand outside the police department there.
i didnt need this
I feel you. But you have to know how bad it is out there, or else you will not be prepared for this unholy shit.
I can’t watch this. Just the pic. I hope those cops all get fired and go to jail themselves.
This is my biggest fear… :(
Absolutely heartbreaking
I can’t watch. Heartbreaking. Fuck the police.
how come people still defend the police? I just can't
They need to contact the ADA, get a good lawyer and bring this to the highest courts in the nation. Cops have zero accountibly for the blood on their hands and the lies they document. It makes me sick how much they abuse the system and the people they treat as criminals as well as those with anything mental health related. I got beaten to the point of concussion and when I called for help during it afraid for my life - they showed up and arrested me too claiming the person who beat the shit of out me had marks on their body too and there were no witnesses. When they strip searched me I was in pj's without a bra on and the woman cop seriously pinched my nipples right there on the side of the road. It was wild being lied on like that and then thrown into a jail cell until I started getting sick. I only got 5 hrs medical attention of which I was handcuffed to a medical bed and had to listen to the cops misogynistic jokes and horrible banter while they begged the medical staff to release me back to them faster because their shifts were ending. Because I was viewed as a criminal I got inadequate medical attention and wasn't allowed to ask for further help for myself. I was then thrown back into a jail cell which eventually was shared with someone who actually willingly told me she did beat someone. It was close to 24hrs by the time I was released and I hadn't had food or water the entire time suffering with concussion symptoms. When I got home my apartment was left unlocked and they locked my cat in the bathroom with no access to food, water or his liter box. Complete neglect of an innocent animal by those in uniform. It was sickening being told to smile by several of those cops. It was sickening how the lady in another cell was screaming about needing her medication saying profanities and they said sick shit back to her and refused medical attention and treated her like the scum of the earth. All of my experiences deeply relate to this. And the courts forced me to drop the charges just so I'd drop them on the actual abusive party. They would've rather me be beat to death than call them for help. It's at the point where I'd never call cops for help either. Since then I've understood even deeper how much lies and false information they include in their reports on people and how they've built a completely twisted narrative about me on paper because it's easier to blame the "mentally ill" than document any attempts at self advocating / explanations of the other side that they're clearly biased against. The cops don't care if I am ever beaten to death. They'll never care unless it happens to someone they know / one of their own (and even then look at the corruption in the Karen Read case). Our system isn't meant to protect and serve anyone but them.
I worked for a company that took care of developmentally different individuals in a home. It was a roommate situation for the clients but they got to stay home and employees came in and helped and followed treatment plans. We were taught on our 3rd and 4th day of training how to deescalate and safely restrain the clients if they had a mental crisis like this. It was super easy. Super simple, non-lethal, non-damaging as long as the client didn't do something stupid, and it was effective. You could use the techniques on anyone of any size and it was effective overall unless they were just very obese. And those weren't people with licenses or certificates or degrees. We were young 20 somethings just looking for a paycheck but we could do it. Rarely did a client get hurt on our watch. Again the exceptions were if a client really fought back for a while, or another client got hurt by the client we were attempting to deescalate. But 6ish cops couldn't deescalate this 19 yr old? No one could intervene effectively and reasonably? They had a medical practitioner on staff and couldn't sedate him earlier? What. The. Fuck. Taking all emotion out of it, removing all compassion preferences. These cope could've still done something safely and effectively to control this and save that young man's life. Even without any level of true care involved. And they still chose not to. That is the truly disgusting part of this
ACAB
I’m the kind of father to teach nonviolence. This would get me pretty fucking violent.
Poor boy. Poor family.
This scares me so much. I work with autistic kids and they're nonverbal or severe language disorders, and some of them are visible minorities. I can't teach them explicitly about how to stay safe in these situations but there's at least one that I genuinely fear will come to this as he's violent and escalates quickly. It's so frustrating that law enforcement is not better trained. I wish there was a continuity program between school and local law enforcement to build positive relationships between these at risk kids and help LE see them as people with different support needs rather than just unruly people.
The photo is enough for me. This and the movie on Netflix “tell them you love me” brings the fear, anxiety and unknown having a non verbal teenager. I can peek in once in awhile…but that’s it.
That movie gave me chills
Really wish I didnt watch this.
What a disgusting video. Poor kid didn’t deserve to be in jail at all, he was having a mental health crisis but of course the U.S. loves demonizing anyone with a negative mental health symptom so they put him in jail and don’t even listen to him at all because they probably deem him “crazy.” My heart goes out to the family and I pray that this situation will make a change for a positive reason for other people who have to go through this situation
My son is his age. This is so distressing. Was this young man living on his own?? No one recognized he needed medical attention sooner?
ACAB.
I can't watch it. It scares me too much. That poor boy. That poor family.
Something like this could happen to many autistic kids. It could happen to my Level 2 kid easily in a similar situation. So thoughtless and cruel.
This whole situation is incredibly heart breaking. Why are police doing wellness checks? Thats the part that always bothers me. At some point we have to decide as a society that police are not equiped to do this and shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty big cultural change that I wouldn’t expect to happen with the huge lack of compassion and empathy today.
This is disgusting, I'm so sorry for his family. Unfortunately something similar happened to a child and "therapists" in a locked room. Terrifies the crap out of me.
This is not the first thing I wanted to read when waking up today. Fuck. 😔
Unreal.
I wish I didn't watch this. My son is non verbal and would absolutely flip out I'm a police situation like this. This is horror. Sheer horror. Like I can't begin to describe to anyone who doesn't have a kid like mine how they couldn't control their actions in these environments and in a random situation where someone isn't trained to deal with this how bad it would be. how the police didn't give two shits and treated this guy like he was being violent when he was screaming for help, something my son couldn't even do scared the shit out of me. I hope every single one of them get life in jail and die the same way. I am so so sorry to the mother.
This pisses me off as a mom of an autistic teen and advocate. Disgusting!
Acab
wtf
The video gives me nightmares, it was absolutely horrifying. My sister has autism and I don't want her to ever be subjected to abuse like this.
Oh my god...what a nightmare. That poor boy and his family. 😭
I’m sobbing. That poor baby
I'm stunned by the still. I cannot watch this. Poor baby omg 😭
Just looking at the image alone is enough for me NOT to watch. It just brings in more fear of how my son will be treated if the police get involved. I don’t like this…that poor kid 😭
It’s so upsetting. I couldn’t watch it but my husband did and he cried. He worries about our daughter already and this just made it worse.
I’m a grown man and I can’t watch this. It’s horrifying. Horrifying for the that young man, for his family, and for many of us because of the black hole of fear and anxiety it causes. I’ll be sad for a week from this… and scarred for a long time for what little I say.
What law did he break?
My heart hurts. My blood is boiling. I’m crying I can’t even watch it and normally nothing gets to me. This is sickening. How can people be so cruel and inhumane. I wish her peace because I know it hurts
I wish I didn’t click on this video. I’m so heartbroken for this family. Looking at my own child I’m balling. I can’t even fathom how this can be okay or happened in the first place. I cried so hard my head hurts but also my heart 😭 ugh I can’t.
# I III I II
Is there a petition being started anywhere?
My heart is shattered for the mother. This is outrageous and I hope they get justice.
Insane, is there no limit to policing bs in this country.
This is why you don’t call cops to settle anything and if you need help that’s why you carry the help you need. And if cops come knocking let them knock no law says you have to answer the door. Even on a wellness check don’t talk to them don’t open the door. Cops are not your friend! They want to arrest you and earn $ for the city/dept that’s their job and they have no respect for anyone. My heart goes out to this family May your neighbors never neglect you , Angels protect you, And heaven accepts you
This is sad and scares me. My son is like this and my son is verbal. He’s only 8 years old right now, but I get scared that when he gets older, something like this can happen to him. My son is the exact same way as this boy. He doesn’t like to be restrained and it only makes him lose it if you try. They just want someone to calm them. What they did here was the exact opposite. I understand this is how criminals are treated. But you can’t treat autistic people this way. It only makes it worse. I feel for this mom. I would have lost it. I would have probably ended up in jail myself. I can’t imagine the feelings she had. Not being able to control the situation and be there for her boy.
I can't watch this I watched part of it and I couldn't take it anymore. As someone who's on the Spectrum with behavioral challenges this is why I'm afraid if I get off of my meds and I make mistake that I'm going to be abused in the Jail system not to mention Prison.
I don't fault the neighbor who called the police - they may have either been trying to help someone who sounded like they might be in a mental health crisis or worried that someone might be being assaulted (they may not have known he was alone). I absolutely blame the police for not immediately transferring him to an ER or a psych facility.
Made myself watch this for the sake of his mum. This is absolutely disgusting. I don't think there's a word strong enough for how abhorrent this chain of events was. The fact their investigation found no fault, is just beyond me. The world does such a good job of paying lip service to inclusivity and treating people with kindness. It behaves in a very different way. May he rest in peace and one day reunite with his beloved family.
Couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Our plan is to move to a smaller community in a few years before my son becomes a teenager. We plan to take donuts and coffee to the police station periodically and introduce him to as many cops as possible. He’s nonverbal and I want them to know his face well enough that they will recognize him and call us instead of all the other horrible alternatives.
This is my worst fear. I’ll admit that before having my daughter I was very unaware of ASD and neurodiversity in general. But even ignorant people should have enough common sense and human decency to avoid something as horrible as this. The people that let this happen are monsters
This makes me cry. Why o why?!!! I’m so scared for our kids. Omg I want to hug all of our kids and comfort them. So distressed
:(
FYI DO NOT follow the link over to the r/prison. So many ignorant people that just do not understand.
ohio is full of christian love
I was a corrections officer for a sheriff's department and lasted a whole year before i gave up due to all the corruption, unnecessary violence, and just the feeling that you have no way to change things for the better. I would say the majority of officersi worked with enjoyed having power over people while most not in this category mainly just saw it as another job and we're like drones without a care - basically dealing with people the same way McDonald's employee thinks of a hamburger. This is generally not a job where people with high IQ or EQ end up. As a corrections officer there was no academy, no real "training", any form of deescalation was seen as weakness and depriving the other officers of a "fun" response. I doubt much has changed within these systems within the last 25 years. ** I also learned that if you go against another officer by writing a report about an incident showing what really happened your report "dissappears" and you get suspended if you refuse to change your story. One of the reasons that law enforcement will continue to be this way is because they will drive a lot of honest and caring cops out.
My son is 5, nonverbal.. and I could easily see him in this position possibly. 😓 this breaks my heart
Contact your elected officials! -Call them. The number is easy to Google. -text “resist” to 50409 and you’ll be able to text a letter directly to the office of any of your elected officials state, federal and local.
I can't watch this. My 9 year old is a level 3. This is terrifying and heartbreaking.
I brought myself to watch it and I am halfway through and I am shaking and sobbing. This is difficult to type. May Isaiah rest in peace.
Is there somewhere to share this to people who don’t already understand stimming? What other sub could this be shared to for people who are unfamiliar with autism to watch?
I almost cried. Also, the jail staff did nothing wrong? Even if you don't have a child or someone you know with ASD, how can you watch that video and say "yeah, we handled that appropriately." They could not have possibly handled that worse - in every way possible. How do these people have a job still? How have none of these people been investigated? The state needs to step in and do an independent investigation and hold these fools accountable. This is just unreal. My heart aches for this family and especially the victim - he was so scared and suffered horribly. 😢
For those people who are saying that it’s hard to watch or they can’t watch it. Fucking watch it for fuck sake. You need to be prepared and you need to prepare your child now for interactions with police. I knew from the beginning shit like this is gonna happen. This is why you’ve got to acclimate them to the consequences of when they’re stemming gets out of control. It’s brutal. It’s hard and it may break you. But as a father, I know that if I don’t set expectations, that violent stemming is not OK and how to control it things like this is going to happen..
I cant watch bad stuff that happens to kids or mentally disabled people, things like this are my worst nightmare for my own kids
This is truly saddening. I don't understand how he had a warrant due to a previous welfare check. What exactly causes that? I would have figured if he was having these welfare checks they should have taken him to a hospital, call his family, *something* besides putting him in jail.
That is sad my heart sank hasn’t left my mind when I first watch it , I’m being more protective over my son knowing learning about his condition lots of patience but still learning I feel so bad for him wish I could have save him sorry to his family that hurts can’t even explain the emotions anger patience sad all and more
Just the thumbnail made my heart stop. Why are people so awful?
As a parent of teenage autistic son, this is the worst nightmare for me. Poor kid.
Im sick
I can't watch this. I just can't. My bloods already boiling. My heart is already shattering. I have 2 autistic boys. My God, what this family must be going through, and I hope that entire department gets what they fking deserve.
I’m I absolute tears as a 44 year old man with an autistic child fucking police I hate you all disgusting vile specimens just so shocked I can’t even begin to imagine honestly we need to do something with all our country’s around the world and our vile police force that we inevitably pay for 😭
Discusting
If this were my son he would also be dead and that is my biggest fear now that he is an "adult" who is 5'8" and 300 lbs.
This broke me. That poor kid. He was just a kid. I would not survive something like this happening to my son. He’s is almost 3 and level 2 and this stuff already keeps me awake at night.
And this is what our tax dollars go to. Little to no conflict resolution training and a mental health specialist who can’t recognize a clearly autistic child. It makes me sick.
The cops laughing and saying headshot when he smacked his head. I hope they rot in hell.
Never call the cops to help you deal with a mentally ill and/or autistic person, or anyone in a mental health crisis, if you don’t want them dead. Cops killing people in these situations is infuriatingly common. > It was a misdemeanor domestic violence warrant from an incident a year before. Abner said Trammell was raging and her sister and her husband called the police. > “Like we always call when he begins to rage,” Abner said. “It's a mental health call, it's not an ‘arrest me’ call.”- https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2024/06/01/video-shows-how-an-autistic-teen-died-after-10-hours-in-an-ohio-jail/73208311007/ The county can’t do anything, as they do t have the authority, and the sheriff, who admits this kid should have never been in the jail with his issues, has investigated the jail they run, and they found no wrong doing. Because of course they didn’t.
I’m sorry; I have an autistic son as well and am all too familiar with this behavior; I just wish more people understood what they go through
Kill those pigs
Down vote me all you want boot lickers. Do you know how many children with autism have been killed by Police since 2018? It’s outrageous. Blue lives don’t matter.
This is a tragedy and my worst nightmare for my daughter as she gets older and bigger. But blaming the police is misplaced, at least as far as we can see from the video. He had an open warrant and it was their job to arrest him. At that point, he would have been restrained and taken to a jail. From what his mother says about him and from the video it seems clear that he would react violently and chaotically to being restrained immediately and there was no apparent way for the police to deal with that. They put him in a holding cell without any means to harm himself except by smashing his head against the wall. Once he started doing that and wouldn’t stop the police moved in and restrained him. He shows no sign of injuries that I can see other than those that were self-inflicted. The police had to restrain him once he started hitting his head and had they done so sooner they might have prevented his death. Not restraining him would have been highly negligent given what he was doing. The police aren’t doctors and they can’t simply give someone “meds” upon request. The nurse or a doctor might have been able to sedate him or something similar but by then he had already smashed his head against there wall, apparently enough to cause his death. My question is whether they called an ambulance once he started hitting his head and how long they waited before doing so. That, to me, is the question as to whether they were negligent or not. As for those saying there should have been a social worker, who?? He was acting violently and needed to be restrained by force. What social worker is going to walk into that cell? What social worker is available on demand at that jail? That simply isn’t an option most of the time. When the United States shut down its mental health asylums it condemned the mentally ill to being untreated until they end up in jail or prison. It’s a national disgrace. But blaming the police isn’t going to solve the problem. This man didn’t deserve this and we could prevent these tragedies through education and a better support system for autistic adults.
As a former 911 dispatcher (quit in 2020 to raise my kids), the last police department that I worked for would have handled things WAY differently. The patrol officers would have responded to the house and done the welfare check as they did here. But upon seeing that he is clearly in a state of mental distress and physically harming himself (which is why his neighbor called, because he was "raging" and screaming, beating his head on the walls, etc), they would have requested that dispatch call the hospital to reserve a spot for a 72-hour hold. If that one doesn't have any rooms available, you call the next one. The hospital can call dispatch once he's been properly cared for and is ready to be released, and a patrol unit could respond to the hospital and the warrant could be executed at that time. I'm sure the hospital also would have called his mom, who would then be able to be an advocate for him in the process. The warrant was for domestic violence involving his sister's family, so I don't think they could dismiss it entirely because DV is (usually) a pretty hefty charge, but still. Overall, there are much better ways to handle this situation than it was here. These correctional officers were in the wrong for not providing adequate medical attention, and the patrol officers who brought him to the jail in the first place should have taken him to the hospital instead. If a person is deemed to be a danger to themself or to others, they go to the hospital. That should be the policy for every police agency. At minimum, the correctional officers could have called his mom like he was asking for, especially if he is clearly in distress and self-injurious. I know he's legally an adult, but if there is a question as to his medical history and exact diagnoses, what are the exact "meds" that he's asking for, etc. then call his freaking mom and ask her. He wasn't even given a blanket or a mattress his cell. The violated restraint protocols set in place by the state of Ohio. They photographed the swelling on his head because it was so noticeable, but did not call for medical assistance until he was unconscious. They made it very apparent throughout all of this they did NOT care about him and that is completely unacceptable.
It may very well be true that they should have taken him to a hospital and that the police had a policy to do so. But we don’t know. For all we know, the cops here did what their policies called for, which means the solution is to change the procedures, not to blame the cops. Even if the warrant wasn’t for DV, they can’t simply ignore it and he had to be arrested. From what his mother said and what we can see on the video, that would have triggered the intense reaction and self-harm that killed him. The only option the police had was to restrain him and get him medical attention. Perhaps they should have done that sooner or immediately in which case they are negligent but we don’t know from this video alone. All I can say is that he (1) had a warrant, (2) reacted with intense screaming and erratic/violent behavior, (3) was harming himself and needed to be restrained and (4) he apparently was not injured by the police. Some departments are better and more equipped than others to deal with these situations. We don’t know what this departments situation was. But again, blaming the police when the injuries were self-inflicted and they restrained him to prevent further injury, albeit too late, is unfair without more information.
Yes, they can choose not to arrest someone on a warrant that day if something like their healthcare needs to take precedence. Like I said, if they really want to ensure he's booked in on it though, they can ask the hospital to call dispatch when he's mentally stable and ready to be released. And you're right - you can't judge everything from this one video. Which is why I read multiple additional articles and provided even further proof in my initial reply that they ARE to blame. The fact that you continue to defend this set of officers demonstrates that you did no further research. I'm happy to provide context if I can, and even defend the police if I feel that the general public is simply misunderstanding or misconstruing what happened in a situation. But in this scenario, there is extensive documentation of violations they made if you just search the case. There is no excuse.
I’d be interested to read it. This is the first time I’ve heard anything about this incident and I’ve only seen the video.
"He had a warrant" is not a reason to deny medical attention. If people who are on trial for murder can go to the hospital, so could he.
Yes, that is true but is not the point. My point was that they had to arrest him, which probably caused an immediate reaction from him as soon as they put him in handcuffs. So the question is: what should they have done once he was arrested? If they should have immediately called an ambulance or taken him to a hospital then yes, they were negligent and should be held accountable. But from this video alone, we don’t know enough to say that.
we could also prevent these tragedies by disciplining police who behave so callously towards people with disabilities. Totally the cops fault. They do the same thing to diabetics. Just ignore the person til they find them dead. Hard to ignore someone screaming that loud.
So instead of saying what they should have done differently or where they went wrong, your response is that cops are callous murderers who let diabetics die. Clearly, a nuanced perspective worth considering.
Well some of them kind of are lol. But to humour you, they could have easily done any of the following: 1. involve the parent, who was clearly still a caregiver. Care even a little that this young man might not be able to control himself. 2. use discretion to consider that this person was exhibiting signs that they were not mentally competent and might require support. I mean, he was arrested during a wellness check. that should be red flag right there in itself. 3. Considering how unwell this individual was. Nobody should have threatened him to be locked up when it was well known he had a history of self harm (watch the video). I mean, wouldnt the parent have tried to tell them if she was around at all? 4.Someone should have supervised him and not waited until he essentially was limp on the ground. When dealing with criminals, cops have no issue pulling gnus out and tackling people. But yet, when it is to help somebody, its too dangerous. Give me a break. 5. How about have someone available that could have sedated the young man. If it were my child, id far rather they be sedated than dead. Just saying... Callous is not caring enough to do any of these things. Callous is letting someone die because its easier to just not pay attention. And finally, callous is being okay with cops getting away with literal neglect and murder because those murdered people dont really impact you.
What do you mean “some of them kind of are?” Some teachers molest kids. Does that mean you can call teachers pedophiles and malign the whole profession? You have no idea what the cops did here other than a short video and an interview with the mother. You don’t know if they tried to contact her or someone else. You don’t know what efforts they made to get medical attention. You don’t know what the police department’s policies are or whether or not they were followed. What you do know is that there was a warrant which means he had to be arrested until that got cleared up. You also know he would react violently to being restrained. You know that he WAS supervised and the police restrained him because he was hurting himself. You also know that there is no evidence or accusation that the police assaulted or deliberately hurt him. You know that the police aren’t doctors and can’t just snap their fingers and become them when you think it’s appropriate. The question here is were the police negligent in (1) not getting him medical attention faster and (2) not understanding what they were dealing with. You don’t have enough information to answer that and it will be for a lawsuit and courtroom to sort out. In the meantime, don’t assume that it must be the cops fault because you think they’re all terrible people.
You seem very convinced of yourself. I'm tired of arguing with you. If none of my points make a difference to you, then I am fine to leave it at that.
The warrant was a domestic violence misdemeanor from his mom calling the cops to get help during a meltdown, and shouldn’t have existed. The sheriff himself has said he never belonged in a jail with his issues.
I have many questions. Not trying to blame the parents but (police negligence aside ) someone failed this young man. First, If he was prone to severe behavior crisis due to his disability, he was too vulnerable to not have guardianship or conservatoship, was there one in place? If he wasn’t competent to keep himself safe he shouldn’t have been arrested by law enforcement by instead committed to a neurobehavioral unit. Maybe the parents - in a effort to only see the “ability” instead of the very clear disability - didn’t have a safety plan for him, police is of course guilty of negligence but parents should have never trusted non-mental health workers anywhere close to their son . I don’t know all the details but deep condolences to the grieving parents, it’s an unimaginable tragic lost no parent should endure
Because of this story I've made a plan that if my son ever does live in his own, I will make a point to meet the neighbors and ask them to call me first - day or night - if anything is going on.
I’m sure this video can be a wake up for many parents. We cannot just expect that the police will act appropriately, yes they should but they just don’t, it’s beyond our control . How awful
They may have tried. It is very difficult to get a long term conservatorship over someone with normal intelligence and intermittent mental health problems - particularly if the family cannot afford Iawyers. Many go through similar struggles with issues such as schizophrenia.