15 year old Aspie boy shot and killed... by cops

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He could have been high functioning, just out of control. School can be very stressful for some. Just having to sit with people all day can be very difficult and cause someone to freak out at home. The article did say Stephon liked to fight with cops. That's a really strange thing to print about someone. It makes it sound like he was a troublemaker or something. Maybe, the cops were really afraid of him because he was strong and liked to fight with them. The question I have is why were cops called so often to the residence yet nothing seemed to change for Stephon. It was the same thing, different day, with the cops needing to continually come out to contain the situation. Not just once or twice but I think the article read twelve times. That's way too many times to not have something happen to change the situation. They shouldn't had to be repeatedly called out over a period of time.

Then the police officers are told he's down in the basement {with a knife.} <---police may or may not have been told of knife. [I want to be accurate and not overstate.]

Why did they themselves then go down into the basement where everything is immediately higher stakes?

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 03 Feb 2012, 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

UPDATE:

(not a whole lot more to go on though ~ seems the parent's account and the cops account differ ~ big surprise )

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/0 ... 49695.html

And maybe this is "clunky" advice on the part of social workers.

And if he doesn't want to go to school that bad, maybe they should let him not go to school. Or, give him several hours and try talking to him in the afternoon.

Okay, on the video:

:28 Police officers have come to house dozen times in last two years, 10 of those times pertained to 15-year-old Stephon. On several of those occasions, the boy had pulled a knife.

1:34 Police have received training on how to handle people with autism. [I would really question, what kind of training ? ? ]

Maybe the most poignant part is when the Uncle says, we are a good law-abiding family, we believe in the police.

See also . . .
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/me ... s-20120201

Right. That was the first thing that crossed my own mind, having been through it myself with my own kids. When a child is that distressed about going to school, it seems to me the way to handle it is therapy. Forcing any Autistic kid into anything they are that distressed over, I have learned the hard way, is the worst possible way to handle the situation.

This.

Kids have to go to school. It's the law. When they are 16 they are allowed to quit. The parents would get in trouble if they let their kids miss too many days of school. So they don't really have a choice. It could be the bullying that made the kid not want to go. I wonder if it be possible that the kid can stay home and still do their school work their school gives out? It be like homeschooling. Then the parents or the tutor from school brings their work to school to turn in. Then they bring it back home when it's been graded.


The other articles mention the dad took the computer away and put it in the closet because he wouldn't go to school. The boy was using the knife to get the door open to get to his computer. But this article contradicts it. It says he was on there playing and his dad tried to get him off to go to school. The boy got angry and it got out of hand.

It was also mentioned in the video the boy once used a steak knife and he got tazored for it. This time he uses a butter knife and he gets shot. I wonder if the officer that shot him was the first time he was ever handling him? They also said in the other articles the officer didn't have a tazor on him but this article mentions the officers felt using a tazor wasn't the option.

I don't think the officers knew the kid had a knife until he went after them with it. They only went in the basement to talk to him and the boy lashed out at them. I do hear both sides of the story are completely different so is someone lying? The parents or the officers or is it just different perspectives and poor memory of the scene? Sometimes when something is tragic, it's very hard to remember the exact details because it happened so fast. The officers go in the basement and the next thing they know, one of them had just gotten slashed so he reacted to it and it was shooting and I bet it was "Whoa, what just happened? I shot him." It was like all of a sudden and like amnesia because they can't remember what happened after they came into the basement. Same with the father, he was in the basement with the boy talking to him and the next thing he knows he had been shot and he is like "What happened? I was talking to him and the next thing I know, he went after them with the knife and attacked them with it and he was shot."

Some people are having crazy speculations like the officers wanted to kill him because he was violent so they decided to shoot him finally after going to their home ten times. Another crazy speculation to have is the officers could be lying saying it was a kitchen knife to make themselves out to be innocent victims. Another crazy speculation can be the dad is lying about what knife he had to make the officers out to be the bad guys and not the victims and their boy as the victim than the offender. I am sure the officers got a good look at what knife he had after he shot him only to see it was a butter knife. So one of them is lying about what knife he had.

No it isn't.

What do you mean? In the USA it is. In must be different in the UK. I hear kids can quit school when they are 16 and I have heard of parents going to jail for their kid not going to school and even Hanyo here has mentioned going to court because she missed so many days of school.

Well, yes, in the U.S. it is, but almost every state has alternatives available. Home Schooling for one, but in cases of disabilities, even when they are in public school, a kid with Autism should have an IEP at the very least. It's not outside the realm of possibility for him to have missed some school as a result of his disability. BUT, there is also the "No Child Left Behind" law, which requires that ALL children have equal access and as much support in completing school as possible. Missing too much school violates that law. In the case of this kid, who's to say how much school, if any he'd already missed. Maybe he'd already missed so much the parents were in danger of getting messed up with DCYF and who knows what else. All speculation, of course. Dammit. And I promised myself I wouldn't do that.

There's just way too many unknowns about this case right now to have any clear idea of who might have done what wrong.

In Scotland parents are legally responsible for ensuring that their children receive an education. Normally that involves attendance at school, or less commonly, home schooling. If you choose to home school and the education authority are not satisfied that the child is receiving an adequate education then legal action can be taken.

There has been at least one case recently in England when a mother was taken to court because of her teenage daughter's repeated failure to attend school.

It's not a legal requirement for a child to attend school if other provisions have been made. It is a legal requirement that the child gets some kind of education, though, whether through school or otherwise.

Don't get me started on NCLB. It's not as benign as it sounds. NCLB states that schools receive funding based on the number of students who attend a certain percentage of days. That sounds ok. For every absence there must be proper documentation for excuse. That sounds reasonable too. These can be a doctors note, a parent note, proof of a death in the family, proof of having to attend a legal proceeding. Still fine with me. The individual school system sets the number of parent notes that each child can have per year. Kind of invasive, but some parents would just write a note for anything, so I can see that. Most school systems in Alabama set the number at 10 parent notes per year. Any more absences due to illness must be verified by a doctors note or the child is truant and the child and parents can be taken to court, both of them put on probation, and the parent jailed if they send too many parent notes. Naaaah, they don't really do that. Do they? Oh yes they do! Well 10 times being home sick per school year without going to the doctor is reasonable. Sure, if it were 10 times, as in 10 instances. It's 10 individual days. If my child is sick with a virus and stays home three days, that is thee parent notes. If my child is sick and I keep him home for two days and he's not better and I take him to the doctor on the third day, that's all doctors notes, right? Nope. It's two parent notes and one doctors note. They only accept notes for the day the child is seen and however many days afterward that the doctor wants them to stay home. What if my child is sick but still able to sit in class and I send him to school because I have ran out of parent notes and also insurance visits/money for copay/transportation/my child isn't sick enough to need to see a doctor but has a low grade temp/vomiting/diarrhea/anything else the school would send him home for? When he gets there if it comes to their attention that he has a fever or has vomited or keeps going to the bathroom a lot they will send him to the nurse who will check him and make you come get him. Thats not a parent note is it? Oh yes it is. And if for some reason you don't take your child to the doctor for an illness that you can handle at home, if you have ran out of parent notes you will be hauled into court!

NCLB is not based so much on helping children as it is inflexable standards for attendance. Even if a child has a blanket doctors note that says "Sally is under my care. She has a chronic illness that may prevent her from attending school every day. She is on medication for this, but there are still days that she is too ill to attend. She does not need to come to the office on those days, as I am kept aware of the situation" they don't care. You still have to take your kid to the doctor when they tell you to or go to court and get probation or later on, jail.

This isn't even considering the costs to Medicaid for the doctors visits for "school excuses". You only have a certain number of Medicaid visits per child per year without prior approval for certain medical conditions that require more. If a child doesn't have those conditions, then Medicaid will not pay for the extra visits. I have used up so many Medicaid visits by taking a kid with a low grade temp or vomiting to the doctor just for a school excuse. It's common here. When I call to make the appt they say "Is he sick or do you just need a school excuse?" If you say "sick" then they schedule you with the doctor. If you say "school excuse" they schedule you with the nurse practitioner. The visit goes something like this. She asks you whats wrong with him, looks at his eyes, nose, throat. You tell her what his symptoms are, what you are giving him, she says "Sounds good, they will give you the excuse at the desk" This is what Medicaid is paying for all over the state of Alabama. Without the requirement for doctors notes for more than ten absences, Medicaid visits for minor ailments that parents know how to treat at home and recognize would be much, much smaller.

Not hijacking thread, and climbing down off my soap box now.

Still though, there are nonlethal alternatives to shooting him. Although pepper spray and tasers aren't pleasant things, they won't kill the average person.

Yes, but what about the next time and the next? This is a kid who will grab a knife and obviously has no fear of police. Ten times is too many times. Red flags are all over this, yet all the parents did was call the cops again and again? Social worker was absolutely useless in this case.
This kid should have been taken out of the home after the first couple of times. Heck, when I was a kid, if someone threatened to call the cops, that would be enough to stop me in my tracks. This kid had no fear, Asperger's or not.
What he needed, although people don't always want to hear it, is a full fledged intervention to snap him out of this pattern with his family. He might not have to stay away that long, just long enough to establish alternatives in his personality and disrupt the dynamic that lead to the fists, the knives and the fighting.
It would have been the best thing for him, in this case.
It's definitely an injustice to autistic people to keep labeling this kid as autistic and saying, "cops shot an 15 year old autistic kid." like this is normal behavior for autistics and you should expect it and cops are needed to handle us. I never pulled a knife on anyone, and never got into physical altercations like this kid. What I did, mostly, was, yell, scream, cry and carry on. So, it's not an accurate picture. This kid was quite willing to pick up a knife and stab someone. That is not part of autism.

Have to disagree with that. Fear often leads to defensive actions. There is no way to know that he didn't feel threatened. Plus where are the details about why the police were called all those ten other times? What were the circumstances? Why were they called the first time, and was it really necessary?

Sometimes a pattern of calling the police for things that could be handled much differently can lead to a bad situation that causes the child to mistrust everyone. It can cause a slow snowball effect.

The thing is we do not know how this all began. Not THIS incident, but how did the whole pattern begin? I really feel it is totally unfair to judge either way until that can be established.



This I do agree with. I think in this final situation it could have been handled as hostage situation. He, in effect, was holding himself hostage. Why not bring a hostage negotiator into play in a situation like this? Or at least something along those lines.

It really does seem extreme to send five cops in, drawing guns, to confront a fourteen year old kid with a kitchen knife.

Was he hurting himself? Had he already hurt someone else? I mean BEFORE the cops got there. Had anyone been hurt? The reports I found as of yesterday, didn't tell us.

That said, here's an update I found today that sheds a little more light on the matter:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012 ... e-officers

1. They had already at least once used a negotiator.

2. This was not the first time he wielded a knife.

3. He had already fought with his father, but the article doesn't say whether either of them were hurt.

4. He was 5' 10" and weighed 220 pounds. That is one very big, and likely powerful 15 year old.

5. He had the officers cornered.

6. Although five officers were on the scene, only two went into the basement where he was.

7. He had already once punched his mother in the face, and fled with a knife in another incident.

8. All 84 Calumet officers had taken a class last year on dealing with Autistic kids.

9. He already had a history of fighting with police.


So far, the evidence has me leaning pretty heavily in favor of the police having done as much as anyone should expect.

What I'm most interested in now is the history of how his family actually dealt with his Autism. Did they really do all they could? Did they really understand Autism? People who don't really understand it can do things unwittingly that can really mess with an Autistic child's head.

Not saying they did, and not saying they didn't. I doubt the reports will ever dig far enough to say.