Tased
February 10, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
15-year-old Tony Presley, who has high-functioning autism, was tased by police on January 28th for “getting out of control at school,” WDIO reports:
Assistant Police Chief Charles LaGesse says on January 28th, Tony got out of control at school. A police report says the school liaison officer wrote Tony a ticket, but then Tony started kicking and biting the officers and school officials. The report says another police officer was called in, and he is the one who tased Tony.
Tony described the ordeal in his own words.
“When I got in that office,” said Tony. “I was calm until they were going to write that ticket. I didn’t know what they were doing, they had no business doing that. All I wanted to do was throw the ticket away.”
Tony’s sister says his fixation on the ticket is part of the autism.
“People know something’s wrong, but they don’t know he’s disabled,” said Molly Presley. “He has good speech, he’s intelligent but he was fixated on the ticket.”
This is at least the third time I’ve reported on autistic male teenagers getting tased: It happened to 15-year-old Taylor Karras in September of 2007 and to 15-year-old Sir Millage in December of 2006. There’s a bill here in New Jersey to promote autism training for first responders, for emergency medical technicians, police and firefighters—–on the agenda should be why not to use devices such as tasers, and why, when an autistic individual is upset and perhaps displaying aggressive behavior, things are not always as they appear to be.
Scary. Purely frightning.
– Mom of a 16-yr-old with Asperger’s
There has been lots of education for police officers here in regards to people with mental illnesses but no mention of autism.
These stories are so sad.
I have a 17 yr. old son with Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s very tall and looks older than his age. I am afraid for him. I’m also glad we homeschool. My heart goes out to the other kids who were tazed. This has to stop!
A program to educate first-responders in New Jersey, given by Dennis Debbault, is reported here by the Courier-News.
Education for first responders on what to expect from autistics is a good start, but I doubt that it would stop many of these episodes of tasing.
Tasing is not a non-lethal method of exerting force, as restraints are also not non-lethal. Until people realize that people die from tasing and restraints, they both will continue to be used for situations where potential lethal consequences are definitely not indicated.
Joe
“Tasing is not a non-lethal method of exerting force, as restraints are also not non-lethal.”
I thought that needed repeating.
My heart goes to the boy and his family, as well as others…
Education is critical not just to first-responders (medical and law enforcement personnel), but also to the people in control of environment. Clearing the room of other people could have been far more effective then any violent force. It probably would’ve disrupted the school day way less then tasing and all the media coverage that followed.
Mainstream school’s teachers should be aware of special-needs people being present in on their watch. Are they? Are substitutes being informed? People should be regularly trained for basic, special ways to handle things when they get out of control.
Whether folks like it or not, special needs people are facts of life. The numbers are rising. Education is key – to everyone around, not just the special ed teachers: classmates, librarians, janitors. At least a briefing… There are ways to deail with public display of uncontrolable behavior – regardless if a child (and at 15 years old he is still a child) is on the autistic spectrum or not. Tasing should not be acceptable altogether.
- Mom of a 5 1/2 years old boy with PDD NOS
Professor, were you able to communicate with Rory Miller? If not, I have his e-mail addy here somewhere, and could try to find it and send it to you.
@Justthisguy; I haven’t; I’d be glad to be in contact with him, thank you!
@Dina Dadian,
“Mainstream school’s teachers should be aware of special-needs people being present in on their watch. Are they? Are substitutes being informed? People should be regularly trained for basic, special ways to handle things when they get out of control.”
Currently there is 1 extra staff member in my son’s special ed room, so even when someone is sick, there are enough instructors. In the past, though, a sub could be anyone and this was often incredibly difficult (and sometimes disastrous). Just today, I met with a music teacher at my son’s school; even just telling her to speak minimally and in a straightforward way without a lot of open-ended questions was a big help.
Bloody idiots.
Shoot first, ask later.
Gets people a fucking long way forward.
Not.
Excuse language, but I have had my fill of authorised boddies of late.
Frau Doktor Professor, I have emailed Deputy Miller’s presumed boss in Multnomah county, and asked him to ask Depty. Miller to email you or me. I know the guy’s wife’s email, from looking at her website, but hesitate to use it, because I think that would be rude, or something.
Rory does have a guest book at his website, http://www.chirontraining.com.
Oh, and it ain’t just auties who get tased for no good reason these days.
Somebody wrote, somewhere, that 40% of police are those who got bullied in school and want revenge, another 40% are those who were bullies in school and see police work as a dream come true, and 20% are honest virtuous people
Oh, this is awful.
I had a really rough incident two weeks ago going to pick up my kids from grandma’s house; I was pulled over and given a summons for running a stop sign. I do not run stop signs. In fact, I’m a really irritating driver in that I’m a bit obsessed with traffic laws and posted speed limits (I’m also a hypermiler, and follow a book’s worth of gas-mileage-maximizing tips).
It was a scary incident because the officer was really impatient with me (he was ticketing every third car or so, my husband says it’s because it was the last day of the month), I was alone, and I got really… stymied. I really couldn’t move on from the experience, and spent about forty minutes on the side of the road on the phone with my husband. We were really trying to figure out what I should do if the situation got tense (I was technically not properly parked, but didn’t feel capable of driving off, and was definitely in a repetitive-speech-loop).
I was very preoccupied with what was going on, but talking to over later, I found out that my husband was terrified that something would happen with the police thinking I was behaving strangely, defiantly, or something like that (I really should have been concerned as well). We settled that I would stay on the phone with him until things were all right, and if the policeman approached again, I would try to have him take the phone so my husband could explain. I don’t know if that would have worked. Luckily, he accepted the apparent story: This woman has never been pulled over before, is upset, and needs to talk to her husband on the phone at the side of the road for a while. But can you imagine if he had decided I was drunk, or crazy? I really don’t think I could have followed a line of questioning, had he chosen to pursue one.
Since then, husband and I have discussed a medic-alert necklace (I should have one anyway for other reasons) and one of those little laminated cards one carries in one’s wallet. I’d love to hear other ideas, just as I’d love some sort of non-patronizing, non-pathologizing training for dealing with such situations.
I’m not that hard to reach. Dr. Chew, if you have time I have a PowerPoint that I use to teach officers about crisis communication. It could use a good critique.
Hi, Rory! Glad you showed up! I hope I didn’t dooce you with that email I sent to your presumed boss.
Hey, at least I didn’t email yer wife!
The Frau Doktor Professor has my email addy, and I hereby ask her to tell you it, and you to write to me.
P.s. I think your last few posts are quite deep, weird, and profound, and should be read by everybody.