Cop shoots caretaker of autistic man playing in the street with toy truck - Polidicks

This goes back to the stigmatization of mental illness or neurodivergent individuals. It's not brought up often enough to professionals in the public service industries for them to even consider it to be a possibility when it definitely should be. Especially with police officers who will, by sheer population density alone, likely encounter a mentally ill or disabled person at least once in their career.

This makes me fucking furious, there's literally no god damn excuse for this. The fact that these people can pass as police is disgusting.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;50754765]Here's the story in a nutshell: Officers get a call about a "suicidal man with a gun," arrive and find somebody trying to coax a mentally disabled person playing with a toy truck back to the nearby mental home. Nobody verifies the situation. The police start barking orders, telling everybody to get on the ground. The caretaker does, but the mentally disabled person does not. Because he is mentally disabled. Nobody verifies the situation. The caretaker repeatedly screams out that there is no gun, that the man is mentally disabled. Nobody verifies the situation. An officers fires three rounds at the mentally disabled person, intending to kill him (because nobody verified the situation). The rounds miss, because the officer did not have a clean shot, and instead hit the fucking person he was "saving," who was directly in the line of fire. Because not one person [I]verified the situation.[/I] This was a massive fuck-up, and every officer involved needs to be severely disciplined for this shit. At the end of the day, the only thing to be grateful of is that these officers failed to actually kill anybody. Had they actually killed the disabled man, as they were attempting, this would have been a whole hell of a lot worse.[/QUOTE] Well, there you go. Sounds to me like there are three core issues here: -Lack of verification of the situation, as you mention. The call didn't match reality and no attempt was made to rectify that discrepancy. In this case there was plenty of opportunity to do so- the officer, even if he thought the autistic man might be armed, was not visibly in danger. -Poor handling of the situation by the cop. Shouting at everyone to get down as soon as he arrives and not listening to the caretaker did not resolve the situation. It doesn't give him any opportunity to understand what's going on, it doesn't give the caretaker any time to explain, it doesn't give the caretaker time to appropriately react since he has no idea what's happening, and it makes the cop start thinking that failure to comply with his orders is active resistance. -Bad shoot. Another officer claiming he's loading a weapon should not be sufficient, there has to be active confirmation of a threat. Officers reacting to one another and seeing things that don't exist is a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo]long-known issue[/url]. Under stress people may twist their perceptions to suit preconceptions, so I can understand the other officer reporting the weapon- but that's why an officer should need to visually confirm before using lethal force. All in all, this comes down to miscommunication, poor communication, and an inability to effectively communicate, culminating in an unjustified shooting. This is not a 'bad situation' or a tragic misunderstanding, it was poor procedure and trigger happiness.

[QUOTE=Pascall;50755686]I know, but the behavior of autistic individuals is often out of the norm for regular people to experience and deal with. But "regular people" should not include police who must be trained to interact with people of all mental capacities. Not just neurotypical individuals.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Pascall;50755686]I know, but the behavior of autistic individuals is often out of the norm for regular people to experience and deal with. But "regular people" should not include police who must be trained to interact with people of all mental capacities. Not just neurotypical individuals.[/QUOTE] What I'm saying is: is their training in this area generally an issue? I don't think I see a lot of cases about things going south with police when autistic people are involved. I can reading a few over the past years, but I can't remember specific events, and trying to find any on google is just leading back to everyone printing this story for the big ratings. I think the officer who shot should be disciplined at best if he has an exemplary record, but more likely, fired for this, but I don't think the whole of the American police force should be damned and assumed clueless and careless about mental health because of one officers mistake.

haha I love how even though it's so painfully obvious the police in this case fucked up big time, people still seem to come up with excuses why it was justified. I mean we've come a long way from the ambiguous cases like Trayvon Martin. This is not like that lmao

[QUOTE=evilweazel;50755980]What I'm saying is: is their training in this area generally an issue? I don't think I see a lot of cases about things going south with police when autistic people are involved. I can reading a few over the past years, but I can't remember specific events, and trying to find any on google is just leading back to everyone printing this story for the big ratings. I think the officer who shot should be disciplined at best if he has an exemplary record, but more likely, fired for this, but I don't think the whole of the American police force should be damned and assumed clueless and careless about mental health because of one officers mistake.[/QUOTE] It's not just autism. Mental health issues in general are treated poorly in all types of public service industries from public safety to education. Police aren't exempt from the lack of appropriate education on how to handle people with mental disability. Even hospitals and doctors are known at some points to mistreat or misdiagnose someone with a mental illness. It happens and I'm not making an assumption that police are clueless. But there definitely needs to be more education on the subject all around.

Police response + the mentally ill = disaster

[QUOTE=Rammaster;50756022]haha I love how even though it's so painfully obvious the police in this case fucked up big time, people still seem to come up with excuses why it was justified. I mean we've come a long way from the ambiguous cases like Trayvon Martin. This is not like that lmao[/QUOTE] I dont think anyone was really trying to justify this, just understand how it happened.

I do think we definitely need to look at how we deal with people who are mentally handicapped, ill, or even drugged out if the right state of mind. Shooting shouldn't be the way to stop a threat from a person that's unable to know they're doing wrong unless that person is presenting an immediate threat (drugged/disturbed person attacking people with a weapon). There's got to be a less than lethal method to detain a suspect that's mentally unable to comply that doesn't involve shooting them.

All the cops fucked up in this situation. The one that fired the shots obviously fucked up the most, but there is still blame on the other officers for not keeping him in check and reassessing the situation as it unfolded with new information. I hope they all get fired, but sadly they'll just be reassigned to another department most likely

Good to know that such able-bodied law enforcers are able to care for those with mental illness and the like. I'm in perfect freaking hands! Seriously, had do you relay "Autistic adult" with "Suicidal man with a gun"?! I'm blaming who ever sent out that call, but the cops who answered handled it poorly. I'm worried that if Trump becomes president, people like me with Autism will be up there on the "Most likely to be shot accidentally."

[QUOTE=OvB;50756472]There's got to be a less than lethal method to detain a suspect that's mentally unable to comply that doesn't involve shooting them.[/QUOTE] Tasers?

So they're saying that the officers thought that the toy truck was a gun. Jesus fucking christ. They had plenty of time to look at it. Also 3 rounds from a RIFLE and 2 missed and one hit the wrong target, what? Thank god the officer was a terrible shot.

[QUOTE=Str4fe;50759449]So they're saying that the officers thought that the toy truck was a gun. Jesus fucking christ. They had plenty of time to look at it. Also 3 rounds from a RIFLE and 2 missed and one hit the wrong target, what? Thank god the officer was a terrible shot.[/QUOTE] The 9-1-1 call reported it as a gun and from the video, it looks like he was covering it with his hands for most of the incident.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50759786]The 9-1-1 call reported it as a gun and from the video, it looks like he was covering it with his hands for most of the incident.[/QUOTE] They had every opportunity to verify the situation, including just listening to the man loudly explaining the situation to them and begging them not to shoot.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;50759851]They had every opportunity to verify the situation, including just listening to the man loudly explaining the situation to them and begging them not to shoot.[/QUOTE] Oh yeah i know, them metaphorically plugging their wears and going "LALALALA IM GONNA SHOOT UU" is fucking dumb but i can atleast kind of see how the situation got to the point at the start of the video, but everything after that was idiotic. I can see how they might've mistaken the truck for a gun while he was hiding it in his hands and lap, but the fact that they didnt try to listen or deescalate is dumb.

I'll be honest with you. Way I see it, as an outsider, the Second Amendment, and the culture fetishizing guns that arose in your country as a result of it, screwed Americans and screwed their police force indefinitely. Because guns are so easily accessible and so widespread in your country, it creates an extremely dangerous, extremely hostile environment for police. Add to that that many police departments in the States have abysmally bad training and pay their officers virtually peanuts compared to what cops in Canada and the UK make, and you've got officers who don't give enough of a shit about their jobs to do it right, and the belief among police that it's perfectly okay to fuck up and murder an innocent if you get scared and think they might possibly have a gun. All of these things have led to the anti-police culture among the poor and particularly racial minorities in the USA. Too little professionalism, too little accountability. And I say this as someone who went through the Academy here in Ontario and understands more than the average civilian about how difficult it is to be a cop.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50759786]The 9-1-1 call reported it as a gun and from the video, it looks like he was covering it with his hands for most of the incident.[/QUOTE] Let's ignore the caretaker literally yelling that it was a toy truck for the duration of the video, and calmly and clearly explaining that he is a caretaker and the guy was autistic. If the camera could pick that up, the cops should've heard it. But, eh, "I don't know," let's just shoot and figure it out afterwards.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50756423]I dont think anyone was really trying to justify this, just understand how it happened.[/QUOTE] Someone was most definitely trying to, the same someone who always shows up in "police am infallible" mode.

[QUOTE=Rammaster;50756022]haha I love how even though it's so painfully obvious the police in this case fucked up big time, people still seem to come up with excuses why it was justified. I mean we've come a long way from the ambiguous cases like Trayvon Martin. This is not like that lmao[/QUOTE] who was justifying it here though?

[QUOTE=.Isak.;50760384]Let's ignore the caretaker literally yelling that it was a toy truck for the duration of the video, and calmly and clearly explaining that he is a caretaker and the guy was autistic. If the camera could pick that up, the cops should've heard it. But, eh, "I don't know," let's just shoot and figure it out afterwards.[/QUOTE] I wasnt justifying the cops actions, i was just trying to run through the logic and line of thinking that lead to it, dont crucify me my dude.