Say Something – Brute Force

I am quite disturbed over the Eric Garner events enough that it’s time to say something. Being a parent of a child, now young adult, with a disability, physical restraint has more than just worried me over the years. To see the videos in which Mr. Garner was clearly in distress, let those restraining him know he could not breathe, is an image I won’t forget for a long time to come.

On more than one occasion I’ve had to advocate on Austin’s behalf on what type of restraint could be used – I permit a transport hold only as a means to move him to an environment in which he can calm and not have a thousand eyes (yes that’s an exaggeration but that’s what it feels like to him) on him all at once. Because of Austin I’ve done a lot of research on the use of physical restraint, much of it stemmed over a meeting in which I was told it was not appropriate to hug my child but it was okay to physically pin my child to the floor using brute force.  In my initial volunteer News-Herald column days this resulted in the “Why did we stop hugging?” column.

The facts still stand - No one has ever died from a hug yet it was deemed inappropriate.  On the other hand far more than one child, one adult, has died because the use of physical restraint has gone very, very wrong.

Yes, I realize that sometimes officers of the law, first responders, are in very difficult situations, their lives can be on the line each and every day; that still doesn’t excuse the excessive use of brute force. And, It doesn’t mean that we can’t do something better, we can’t better train these individuals and prepare these individuals to make appropriate decisions.

Austin is not black, he isn’t profiled, but he is developmentally disabled. Now that he’s over 18 a lot of things have changed and as his mother I’ve got to be realistic about his safety in the community. Yes, I’d love him to be independent but I have to think of the “what if’s”.

The big one is “what if he’s in the community and he has a meltdown?”

• Who would recognize it as a meltdown?
•  Who would recognize that he is developmentally disabled?
• Who would understand the best way to get him back to calm, to keep him and others safe?
• Would he be restrained?
• Would he be tasered?
• Would he be shot?
• Would it be fatal?

I have never wanted to be a helicopter mom but I’ve found that as Austin has aged I’ve probably become more of a helicopter mom. He has fragile X, to the untrained eye he has no physical features that he is disabled. He appears for the most part as a typical young adult male, oddly what many families of individuals strive for an inclusive environment in which they are the same as their peers. Yet being treated the same as his peers in an altercation or a first responder (EMT) situation has the potential for very negative consequences.

There are a few organizations that try to address this such as the Law Enforcement Network, aka L.E.A.N. On Us, to provide first responders with information and resources that will allow them to better serve individuals within their communities affected by hidden disabilities and mental illness but in the big scheme of things the number of departments/cities that actually invest in such training is almost nil.

In the end, I’m only frightened and sad because when it comes to the use of physical restraint, brute force and working with those with disabilities/mental illness I have to ask “How many lives will have to be lost until we do something to change this?”