The rush to blame autism after tragedies at schools

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So what needs to happen to make AS children safer from bullying at school? What do you think might work?

Perhaps individual people should count just as much as context.

I'm not accusing you for one split second of being a creep, but maybe if that's how your family/friends perceive you and don't trust you alone around their young children then that's reinforced your paranoia about doing everything in your power to Not possibly be mistaken for a creep.

Meanwhile, in my reality, I lost count how many times my youngest God daughter fell asleep on my chest in the first 5 or so years of her life. (She's 10 now.) In fact, my facebook profile picture is of her sleeping on my chest when she was under a year old - I've never changed my profile picture even though I look differ now (fitter) because I like that picture.

I'm not doing anything any parent needs to worry about. I AM a protective person, especially of my friends/family. I''m 6'2 200lbs ~12.5%bf right now & quite strong. I'm the one someone would have to worry about if they harmed a kid in my life, not one harming kids. Again, I'd be happy for Owen Lynch's parents to see my message - to see that I identified myself as an HFA adult having this conversation on this forum & reached out to say "don't fret too much, because like myself, you have a future," sort of thing and that's that.

It's okay to advise people to ensure they're not saying/doing anything inappropriate with minors online, but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as appropriate communication with young people.

Following the recent school shooting deaths at a Florida high school, parents, students, school workers and police are at a heightened state around the country.

It has nearly everyone watching out for anything that could result in violence on school grounds.

But in Muskegon County, one mother says the photo of a gun on her son's Facebook page should not have caused him to be considered a threat.

A Muskegon County Sheriff's deputy was called to the school after 10th grade student Isaac Alman walked out of a meeting with the school's principal.

Alman's mother Jessica NeCamp says the school wanted her son to open his Facebook page. But NeCamp says her son refused and left the office to join other students participating in a walkout in support of stricter gun control laws.

After some students saw police talking with Alman the rumors began on social media.

"They saw my son in handcuffs," NeCamp said. "They saw the threats that he made."

NeCamp wants to clear the air. She says her son was never arrested. "They did not put him in the car, they did not put him in handcuffs."

NeCamp says her son was called to the office after a parent in the school district saw two photos of guns on his Facebook page.

NeCamp believes the parent who raised concern about her son did so in part because he's different than other students.

"He is on the spectrum," NeCamp said. "He has aspergers."

In the aftermath of a tragic incident like the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, we’re often left with questions. A natural response is to seek out answers, to try to make sense of something truly horrific – and to place blame.

“Cruz had been diagnosed with autism,” read a Feb. 17 article in the Chicago Tribune, “a neurological disorder that often leads to social awkwardness and isolation.”

It’s not a new take – in fact, autism is frequently associated with violence in these situations. Since many people don’t understand what it means to be autistic, it’s easy to jump to conclusions. And it feels better when you can put a label on it. Because it wasn’t random, right? He was just autistic.

But buying into the idea that autistic equals violent is not only incredibly dangerous, it puts an already vulnerable population even more at risk.

In addition to the “awkwardness and isolation” that is generally attributed to both autistic people and disturbed teenagers with guns, there is also a pervasive misconception that those on the spectrum are unable to feel empathy – lending credence to the idea autistic people must be violent individuals. According to a 2012 Psychology Today article, empathy is “the ability that makes us truly human.”

So, if autistic people lack empathy, what does that make them? Aliens? Monsters?

In reality, many autistic people have particularly strong empathetic responses. While the autistic community has been arguing this for years, researchers are finally suggesting it’s not necessarily empathy itself that is compromised in an autistic brain – instead, autistic individuals might express this empathy in ways that won’t always make sense to someone neurotypical.

Still, the association continues. It’s important to remember, when you see coverage that tries to explain away a tragedy by implying it was a result of autism – while autistic people are infinitely more likely to be victims – there are always those, as in any population, who will make poor choices with terrible consequences.

To help us move past this harmful preconceived generalization, Dr. Karoly Mirnics, director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center offers some advice – suggesting we make a greater effort as a society to include, not stigmatize, autistic people.

ince the Parkland shooting, school administrators have been understandably on edge. But a student with autism says he was unfairly targeted. And experts say he’s not the only one. 7’s Brian Entin investigates.

Look in Erek Colon’s bedroom, and you can tell right away — he’s obsessed with wrestling.

Erek Colon, not allowed back to school: “I love it a lot, like from the posters, to all the games, to everything.”

When the 11th-grader is not in school, he spends most of his time creating wrestling characters … and narrating play-by-play.

Erek is on the autism spectrum — and wrestling games are his outlet.

But one of the videos he made got him kicked out of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale.

Erek Colon: “I was absolutely devastated. The moment I heard her tell me that I could no longer go to the school, it’s like time stopped.”

The wrestling character Erek created is named “Assassin Erek.”

And he posted this video to Twitter on Valentine’s Day.

Wrestling video, Erek’s voice: “You do not want the Chaos Dealer, the assassin, the villain. You do not want the Switch Blade pissed off on Friday.”

While parts of the two-minute video sound violent, it is clearly about wrestling.

But someone edited the video, took out the wrestling references and animations and posted this on social media.

Edited hoax video: “For those of you who decide to [expletive] with me on Friday, you’re just signing your own death certificate.”

The caption says: “Everyone that goes to Gibbons, I don’t know if this is real or fake, but don’t take it lightly please.”

It was sent to school administrators, and Erek was told not to come back to Cardinal Gibbons.

Tomika Fykes, Erek’s mother: “They weren’t interested in seeing the real video. They were only interested in the video that they had in their possession, which was the hoax video.”

Police investigated and wrote in a report, “It is the professional opinion of this detective, with 25 years of experience as a Fort Lauderdale Police officer, that the audio recordings Erek Colon posted were not threats against Cardinal Gibbons High School or any of their faculty or students.”

The detective said because the video was posted the same day as the Parkland tragedy, it was “taken out of context.”

Tomika Fykes: “They should have taken into consideration what the officers had to say.”

Despite police finding no credible threat, Erek’s mom says Cardinal Gibbons will not allow him to come back to school. The private school did not respond to our request for comment, but in a letter to parents said they followed safety protocols.

Experts at the University of Miami’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities weren’t surprised to hear Erek’s story.

Dr. Michael Alessandri, University of Miami: “The parents are calling in crisis because they’re worried that this shooting is now clouding other people’s judgment about who their children truly are, and who they knew them to be before.”

The spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Miami which oversees the school released the following statement that reads in part, “The Archdiocese of Miami School officials would not discuss any aspects — including discipline ones — of their students, in particular those who are minors. In addition, I have been informed attorneys are now involved, again preventing any comments that may affect the outcome of legal discussions.”

Instead of focusing so much on bullying and safe rooms and zero tolerance, which may all be good ideas, what about focusing more on the gun security when it comes to shootings?

For example, do these schools have metal detectors and armed guards, if such a shooting event were to occur?

Why should the solution be to lock schools down like prisons? Why not sensible gun control laws instead?

I’m sure those metal detectors cost tens of thousands of dollars each, of not more. Armed guards? They cost $60-100k/year.. each. Schools don’t have budgets for paper or playgrounds and they’re now supposed to come up with money to outfit the grounds like a prison (hundreds of thousands, possibly Millions of dollars, per school) & to pay their own armed guards? Yeah, right.

In the aftermath of the Parkland massacre, some students with disabilities are being taunted or callously pegged by others as being the next school shooter, parents and experts say.

“There’s been a lot of bullying going on in our schools,” said Kelly Busch, a South Florida advocate for children with autism.

Yet Valerie Herskowitz, of Jupiter, who has a grown son with autism, said she’s heard from parents that some students have asked autistic children: “Are you going to kill us?”

On April 4, the Autism Committee of the Exceptional Student Education Advisory Council to the Broward County Public Schools will host a community meeting to offer support to families and dispel misconceptions about people living with autism in hopes of stopping any harassment and assuaging any concerns, said Busch, who chairs the committee.

The meeting, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at South Plantation High School, will include a reception and a panel discussion with medical professionals and specialists. Some school board members and administrators are slated to attend.

Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said he’s seen no data or internal information showing any spike in bullying or unease regarding students with developmental disabilities.

“If it’s true that there are students in the school district being stigmatized because of their special need or disability, that’s something we’re not going to tolerate, and we’re going to take appropriate action to address,” Runcie said.

“I’m looking forward to hearing from our parents. Certainly we’ll do our own review based on what we hear from them about what is going on in the schools.”

The desire by advocates to clarify publicly that people with autism are not inherently violent is a direct response to reports that Cruz, now 19, had autism.

He had many issues beyond autism,” and likely was a “very complex psychiatric case,” said Michael Alessandri, executive director of the University of Miami-Nova Southeastern University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, which provides services to people with autism and resources for school districts.

Often when children have many and varying symptoms and numerous diagnoses it indicates that professionals are “not quite sure what the kid really has,” said Alessandri, who will speak at the April 4 discussion.

“It’s not about autism. It’s about a boy with a clearly demented mind, a lot of anger and a lot of horrible life circumstances — who harmed lots of people.”

Still, a few parents in South Florida have told the University of Miami center since the shooting that peers are bullying their children and that even some school officials are now reacting differently to certain behaviors than they had in the past, Alessandri said.

After the shooting a few children with autism across South Florida, Alessandri said, have been suspended and at least one was expelled from a private school for “a perceived threat” based on a wrestling video he made.

One child with autism, knowing Cruz possibly also had autism, was trying to process the shared condition and deal with his own anxiety over it by talking a little too much about the shooting — making his classmates and school personnel nervous, Alessandri said. The boy’s mother told Alessandri that school officials recommended he leave school temporarily to get care and treatment.

Attorney Jeff Kasky of Delray Beach, whose son Cameron co-founded the #NeverAgain movement, has another child, Holden, who is autistic. Both boys attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and were hiding in a classroom in the freshman building during the shooting.

Later with his dad, Holden made a video discussing the shooting and his reaction to police who were shouting and “had a bunch of guns” and flashlights pointed at him and other students. The video urges law enforcement to take special care when responding to emergencies involving people with autism or other developmental disabilities, who may not properly respond to commands.

It’s been viewed on YouTube more than 80,000 times and 2.3 million on Facebook