Are Apies Likely to be TASERED More Than NT's?

Post Reply New Topic

I'd say autistic people in general are more likely to be tasered (or subjected to other things like that) than NTs who are not also part of a group that are really likely to be tasered or subjected to other things like that. We're one of many groups of people that's more likely to happen to. Others include deaf people, other people with conditions (especially ones that the police don't understand), people of color, poor people, etc.

And not only more likely to be tasered but also to be shot at. Where I used to live there was a woman who had some kind of psych label and was Asian-American, and the police were told she was acting crazy or something, but they knocked on the door and she was peeling potatoes so she came to the door with a potato knife or something, and they shot her because they insisted she was waving a giant knife at them (she wasn't, she was just peeling potatoes so she just had the knife which was actually quite small). And a lot of deaf people have been shot for not responding to officers' instructions right away (this can also happen with CAPD, I'd imagine, but haven't heard of it yet).

In most of my encounters with police, they have gone badly because police so often grab me from behind. You'd think they'd know that just about anyone who was grabbed from behind would fight, but when they grabbed me from behind they felt like they had to subdue me because I was then "violent", when of course police were among the ones who taught me to struggle if someone grabbed me. Go figure that one out. Ugh.

I still can't figure out why I'm a police-magnet. The last outdoor encounter I had was actually where I was sitting waiting for a staff person in Watsonville, California. People kept walking by and asking if I was okay. I nodded. And then they'd ask again. And I'd nod again. Finally someone called the police. The staff person pulled up right after the police did, and one of the two cops already knew me (I'd given him a copy of Dennis Debbaudt's book on autism and police), so he verified that I lived there (they'd kept asking if I lived there and not getting it when I nodded) and I got to go off with the staff person. I still don't know what the big deal was. That time I was not even having a meltdown like some of the times (and I can sort of understand police investigating a meltdown), nor was I walking around (which some people call the cops to report as "wandering" for some reason). I was just sitting waiting for someone, which I thought wasn't illegal or anything.