i truly hope i dont offend any friends or other members in our community, I am just stating things from my perspective (admittedly limited perspective) out of curosity and confusion.
Why are we being petitioned for a call of action for a full investigation for Ethan Saylor? Wasn't it "fully investigated" already. This is an uphill battle that in my honest opinion has already been conducted as best as they will ever do.
I have a child who is defiant and aggressive. Though I do not know what other diagnoses Ethan has, I would like to point out to friends/ and to the public that Ethan's actions are not "typical" to Down syndrome. He could have multiple diagnoses that we are unaware of. They were, however, a
common form of expressive outburst many of our children and adults in the disability community display.
If we would stop for just a second and think about things from the courts/ police/ and legal system--- we would need to (for a second) ignore that Ethan had a disability. If a young man of his size WITHOUT a disability acted that way in a movie theater or towards police/ law enforcement, the same actions most likely would have incurred, though the result would have been presumably different. THIS is why I feel that petitioning to have it investigated further will have No effect.
They will continue to claim that the off duty officers acted according to their training.
WHAT I THINK WE SHOULD BE DOING instead-
We MUST change the way our children, friends, neighbors, community members, and strangers with disabilities are treated. This is such a unique opportunity to shed light on the amount of ignorance that is out there.
If our law enforcement don't know how to react, how will the general public?
1) We must be hosting events for our children/ neighbors to meet law enforcement
* Teaching our children how to react to police (index cards with critical information and instructions are a great assest for many children who are non-verbal or have limited intelligible speech)
**MORE importantly
teaching police how to react when confronting or questioning our children
2) We must push for mandated training of ALL law enforcement personal in dealing with a wide array of disabilities, mental health, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Intellectual disabilities, Physical disabilities. (see 3 & 4 for more)
3) We MUST train ALL aides, therapists, service providers, parents, caretakers, and employers HOW TO INTERVENE- How to advocate IMMEDIATELY on behalf of their client and maintain the situation while they explain to officers what their client's immediate needs are and what ramification can be taken if compliance or safety continue to be an issue.
4) We must require all law enforcement personal to first try handling the situation through the individual's ESTABLISHED routine NOTED by the individual or their caretaker.
I feel that we need to stop looking at Ethan's death as an injustice because of excessive force. His death should be a driving force to fix the wrongs done to him- his death was an injustice because society has not learned how to fully accept disability. It is an injustice because of LACK OF TRAINING, LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, & LACK OF REAL SUPPORT that Ethan should have been provided.
This is something very dear to me because of Raven's secondary diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. It is scary thinking about sending her out into the world without me. We are often stared out when Raven is being defiant. I am scolded for my lack of spanking my disobedient and occasional abusive child. To many Raven just appears to be a spoiled 5 year old who has a mother more interested in telling her to use her words or use nice hands than hauling off and spanking the naughty out of my child. - Raven's brain does not compute things the same as others. She gets an idea in her head, i.e. which way to walk or a specific toy she has to pick up, and when asked to deviate from that she uses screaming & hitting as her first line of defense to protect herself from change. Prompting and patients are really the only thing we can do to help her believe that walking a different way is just as fun and will not cause her stress or pain. --- Ethan had his way of approaching the day, had they prompted and been patient with him he may have eventually walked out himself. If he continued to refuse he could have been fined the fee of the movie and possibly a disorder conduct and all of his "crimes" would have had restitution. OR those surrounding him in his last few minutes on Earth could have just been understanding and helpful to the aide in getting him to where he needed to be.
I have a suspicion that had Ethan's mom arrived, had the police held off just a few more minutes or the aide convinced them to wait for Mrs. Saylor, Ethan may have very well been here today. We have a unique way of advocating for our children... we need to be using that right now to advocate for change. Please let us stop this from happening to another individual with Down syndrome/ or disability- L
et us get ever-lasting justice for Ethan.
UPDATE: I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our local officers today about Ethan Saylor and how it affects each of us in the disability community. I was sad to hear that he had heard nothing about Ethan's tragedy. However, I am pleased to report he took it to heart. I asked him how I could go about educating our local law enforcement and also educating our children and adults with disabilities about the precautions and how they are to communicate and behave around police (a holistic approach to preventing this tragedy from happening in our community). I was thinking about doing a meet and great with police, which he loved. He also informed me that I can schedule a tour at our police station. He ALSO recommended that I take an article about Ethan Saylor to our Chief of Police and express my concerns and fears regarding this matter. It was his opinion that things need to be done from law enforcements side to prevent this, but coming from him it would likely be dismissed. Coming from a parent and a member of this community- it has the potential to really cause some attention and Change!
I am also please to report that he states our officers are required to go through sensitivity and disability awareness training- however he feels it is inadequate to what I am suggesting. He, as am I, was so excited to have this happen in our community. I am so excited to work with him, and his co-workers!!! As soon as I drop Raven off at school tomorrow I will be stopping in to speak to the Chief!!!
I also contacted one of our local behavioral health providers to inform them of the conversation. As soon as I work through the details we will be sending flyers out to the families whom have children receiving wrap-around (Therapeutic/ behavioral) services!!!
Please share Ethan's story with your local/ state law enforcement agencies-- and see if they have meet and greets or tours as well!!!
