Maybe autistics are getting too much of kid glove treatments

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I agree that unprovoked attacks are not justifiable. My position is that the state of being-a-police-officer is itself a provocation. You are of course free to disagree, but not to misrepresent my position.

I'm not an advocate of any sort.

I understand that. And that is why I was not necessarily saying you are an autism advocate. But this is a forum for those with autism and it at the very least seems to include quite a few members who can be called autism advocates of sorts. And if any of them have the same kind of viewpoint you have, this is a severe, severe problem. Among those who do advocate for those with autism, rejecting these kind of viewpoints is a must if they really want to bridge the gap between those with autism and neurotypicals.

Agreed. Nobody should make the mistake of taking what I say as being representative of autists as a whole in any way. Possibly it's representative of the general views of autistic mathematician anarchists who suffered institutional abuse, but even that's a stretch.

I don't really see what this case has to do with the autism.

I don't know why the man attacked the police officer.

All I know is it's far easier to change a single person's behavior (yourself) than it is to change an entire group's behavior. So look out for yourself. Do what the cops says and no one gets hurt. I say that with a cringe, but seriously, best we can do.

I think it would be a good idea for the police officers to get involved more in the community. Have some special police officers who volunteer more often. I don't know about everyone else but I tend to get afraid when I see a cop car or a man in uniform. I realize they are doing their job (and I'm glad they are) but is it natural to be afraid of the people who are supposed to protect you?

That's demonstrably false. The strongest statement one could truthfully make in this regard is "Do what the cops say and the odds of someone getting hurt are reduced."

Lol, well yes, that is a factual statement

I get your point. I just was trying to throw in some moderate common sense into the argument. I kind of agree though. I have not had particularly good experiences with cops.

This makes no sense. What other imaginary positions do you think autism advocates might have and need to reject before they can be seriously?

Must autism advocates denounce the risk of autistic people joining the Islamic State? How about making strong statements against the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons by autistic people? Don't you think that's at least as important as this?

Perhaps autistic advocates should also make strong statements against using asteroids to bombard enemies on the Earth's surface. It may not be possible now, but in a decade or two, this could be a real threat and ASAN has no position on this moral outrage.

Also, autistic advocates might be called on to speak out against autonomous killing machines. Not the remotely piloted drones of today, but fully autonomous devices that will patrol designated "kill boxes" in future conflicts, sending lethal ordinance at any humans or vehicles detected within the specified coordinate based polygon.

You should not put so much energy into worrying about a hypothetical problem.

Fair enough, but in the case of this officer, it seems like autism advocates did not address the possibility that Latson may have been a severe threat to public safety and seemed to assume that this was a case where the justice system was 100 % at fault. My original fear was that even if it was not all autism advocates, a disturbing number of them did not really want to address the issue of whether or not Latson was a true danger to the welfare of others and I felt this may have been reflective of a more fundamental issue among some - not all of course but enough to cause problems - of autism advocates n terms of not addressing the issue of autistics who are periodically violent and who may be a public danger in the wrong circumstances.

I was wondering what your specific view is on whether or not my fears are justified. If they are not, I am interested in your explanation as to why.

I think the more salient point is that, to date, I've never seen a moderate position on the police problem that doesn't include false statements which color the police in a more sympathetic light than that which they truthfully deserve. As such, there's reasonable evidence to support the position that a truth-consistent moderate position on police violence may not be logically possible.

Because as far as anyone could tell, he was not a threat to public safety at all. All he was doing was waiting outside a library for it to open before the officer came went to him to ask him to get him to leave. There is no law against waiting outside a building until it opens, he wasn't breaking any.

No proof? Every single news story that I've read about this actually does say that the officer was harassing him before he struck back. Like this one:



http://sfbayview.com/2011/06/pardon-wrongfully-convicted-autistic-youth-neli-latson/

When the officer realised that he had no gun, then he should of been left alone because he committed no crime.

It would be nice to have more impartial sources. A "national black newspaper" is not really an impartial, objective source of information.

It bothers me that autism is brought up when crimes occur. I don't think it has any relevance to the case unless the individual with Asperger's is mistakenly blamed for a crime due to his odd behavior when he is, in fact, innocent.

I agree but that's exactly what happened in this case though. At least it's how it started but after that, it was other mental health issues caused by being in solitary confinement.

What happens, quite frequently, is that cops don't understand autism

The Spectrumite who is the subject of a police investigation is anxious, and understandably so. Anxiety leads to actions that make cops paranoid.

Specifically, he/she is liable to put his/her hand in his/her pockets because of the anxiety. Putting hands in pockets is a NO NO to cops. That could lead to you getting shot, or at least to be "taken down" in a painful manner. It is assumed that you're reaching for a weapon when you put your hands in your pocket.

Now...I believe people with autism, especially those with their cognition intact, should be subject to the law of the land. However, I happen to believe there should be training which addresses Spectrumite reaction to being the subject of a police encounter.

I apologize for referring to the OP as a concern troll. I misunderstood the concerns expressed.