This past Thursday in Virginia, a 24 year old autistic man was tazered by James City County police after he was to “become unruly with employees at Wilsons Leather at the Prime Outlets-Williamsburg shopping mall,” according to the Daily Press. It was only after the man was placed under arrest and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest that police learned that he had Asperger’s Syndrome.
Needless to say, incidents like these make training about autism for police and other first responders more than essential. The Daily Press quotes a James City Police spokesman, Mike Spearsman, as saying that the …read more