Fatal shooting of autistic teen raises concerns about police response to people with mental health issues
Ryan Gainer, a teen with autism, was a cross-country runner who worked out his frustrations with six-mile runs and dreamed of becoming an engineer.
On Saturday afternoon, the 15-year-old became upset that his parents had demanded he complete his household chores before he would be allowed to play video games or listen to music on his computer, according to DeWitt Lacy, a civil rights attorney representing Ryan’s family.
“He got upset. Any teen would be upset by that,” Lacy said. Some people with autism experience more heightened emotions and on that day Ryan responded by breaking glass on the front door, Lacy said.
A family member called 911 for help, asking dispatch to send deputies to “take him in” because he was breaking glass and hitting his sister, according to a portion of the call released by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
But instead a responding deputy fatally shot the teen, saying he had threatened the deputy with a garden tool.
This headline happens so frequently that I was confused at first and thought it was from a couple of years ago.
Why would you call the cops on someone you care about? How often would a armed person that can kill with impunity help a situation?
Defund the police was an unpopular slogan. 'Redistribute some police funding to social services, education, mental health, and unarmed crisis interventions' doesn't fit on a T-shirt. When faced with a dangerous family situation, there's no one else to call for help.
Defund the police was unpopular because the rightwing weaponised it and made it so.
Any phrase you use will be made unpopular, even something as basic, positive, and explanatory as “walkable cities”.
The issue isn’t the phrase you use, it’s not defending them well enough from malicious actors.
The right-wing weaponized it and most news outlets did nothing to push back against them.
There were various reports of "huge crime spikes" in certain cities following announcements by local politicians that the local PD were going to be defunded, but in most cases that never even happened, and in some cases the spending on police even went up by a couple of percent.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971
Sorry, I strongly disagree. It's a dumb slogan that says, "Get rid of the police!". Once that idea is in people's heads, there no explaining what it really means.
nah man, abolish the police... fuckem ACAB
Exactly. Abolish police. Abolish prisons. Abolish people's right to carry guns. Only then can we have the truly peaceful society we want.
This happened a few years ago with a different teen IIRC, so I was equally confused until I saw the picture
'raises concerns'? Bro, those concerns have been raising steadily for quite a while now. They've almost escaped the atmosphere.
The bar is low and the concerns are high
How many times does an issue need to be raised before it is resolved?
As many times as it takes to affect rich people
∞
+1
The only feasible reaolution for this sort of situation is more drastic interventionary measures after earlier incidents. Once he is swinging a hoe at family members and officers, it is entirely too late to expect a non-forceful resolution.
This was not the first time the family called for police to intervene. We need to look at those previous incidents to figure out how to recognize kids that will come to pose a danger to themselves and others.
I’m not sure how much higher they can raise.
ACAB
Whether you are an ACAB type or a Thin Blue Line type, you should be in favor of being less dependent on cops for things like basic civil service, mental health care, wellness checks, traffic enforcement, etc. Cops have to wear too many hats. They're expected to be professionals, experts even, in too many fields. It is not fair to them to expect that level of competence in so many specialties and it's not fair to the community that needs experts to rely on people who have minimal training outside of arrest techniques and self defense. Instead of 30 generalists in all fields in a community, we should have 30 specialists in different fields. Some cops, some emergency mental health experts, some social workers, some traffic enforcement specialists (yes, this should be separated from general law enforcement), etc.
Edit: Additionally, I believe that separating these duties to different people with different authority, techniques and mind sets will also make it safer for both cops and the public. How many cops are killed during basic traffic stops because a criminal was expecting to be caught or feared the cop's sidearm? How many innocent citizens have been killed in basic traffic stops because the cop was trained to be afraid for his life? How likely is a civil worker going to be to feel the need for lethal force if they aren't armed at all times? How likely is an addict going to be to shoot on sight when an EMT knocks on the door for a wellness check?
It's also counter-intuitive, but cops and the public will be safer when they only have to deal with dangerous situations, when they're exclusively dealing with criminal suspects. They can rely on their defensive training without worrying about as much situational circumstances. And they're not interacting with the general public as if their the nails they're trained to hammer.
This is essentially what the Defund The Police idea was all about before it got killed politically. Instead of putting additional $millions per year into the local PD, spend that money on additional outreach programs and first-responders with counseling training instead of having armed cops showing up on every scene.
Exactly. Unfortunately, the fundamentally good and sound idea, "defund the police", got named a phrase that, while understandably cathartic and snappy for those on the side of police reform, was an easy target to the opposition. It played into their misrepresentation of the actual goals of the movement as being fundamentally lawless, chaotic and anarchistic. They made the idea of reprioritizing our tax dollars to more directly meet the public needs into a scary idea that will destroy property and endanger lives. And the police helped with that too. I really feel like if the name attached to the idea was less seemingly antagonistic towards the police and more descriptive of the actual goal, we'd still at least be talking about it in legislatures.
Yeah, it's sad how such a promising idea essentially got killed because the poor choice of name stuck.
"Reform Police Funding" or "Budget Reallocation" would have been a lot less controversial.
"Defund the police" was the dumbest slogan. It made it too easy for people to misunderstand reallocate funds and responsibilities.
We could pull the ol name switcheroo, like many politicians do for bills. Could start the 'Help the police' movement but still call for reallocating funds and responsibilities. Same same, but different.
The issue within the police force is an issue of mental health, so of course they're not equipped to deal with it. Same unfortunate story.
I have said this elsewhere but police only seem to know how to escalate situations. As a person in this field calling the police is the last resort in our crisis plan…technically…but I’m afraid if it gets to that point that I can’t handle it, introducing an individual armed and ready to escalate would be a death sentence and I couldn’t live with myself. I make sure my kiddos who have autism know the risk of police using misunderstandings to murder them as well. I hope this cop recieves punishment , but I won’t hold my breath.
LA Times. Uh, could you . . . Y’know. Make a better effort at describing this kind of event as an absolute horrifying epidemic and maybe less of “oops that shouldn't be” sort of spin?
Okay that’d be great, yeah thanks
It sounds like he was violent. What's a cop supposed to do, exactly?
You mean there's no step between doing nothing and kill somebody? A "violent" teen with a garden tool. American asf
I don't know, maybe ask him to not run at him with a garden tool? The fact that they need to be trained to have this tiny amount of compassion is sad. They just want any reason to shoot neurodivergent people of color like this.
Not shoot to kill?
Taser, pepper spray, beanbag?
Not like this kid has a gun