I’ve been asked my opinion on the Saylor case, and given that so many other bloggers in the special needs world have posited an opinion, I guess it’s time for me to make my thoughts known, as well. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, first read up on it here. And while you’re at it, check out this article and this editorial, too.
I’m appalled. I’m sickened. I’m angry.
But I’m not surprised.
A lot of folks are up in arms…Why weren’t the officers better trained?…Why didn’t they heed his calls for his mother?…Why did the theater employee make such a big stink about him hanging around for a few extra minutes?…Why didn’t the eyewitnesses – who were quick to speak up about the details after the fact – not intervene in the moment?…Why didn’t the grand jury indict?…Why didn’t the department seek out an independent investigation?
Lots of questions, very few answers – it would seem.
But as a mom who lives every day knowing that the ugly world outside my house is very different from the beautiful world inside it, I’ve got a theory. I’m pretty confident that I can answer all of those questions with one simple sentence.
Most people don’t give a damn about people with disabilities.
While my feed reader has been blowing up with blog entries about Ethan Saylor, I’ve also – just in the last week – read posts by my blogging acquaintances about children in special education who were abused at school and others who were left on school buses. Sadly, those stories are all too common.
I have a search set in my Google Reader for stories related to Down syndrome and cerebral palsy, and rarely does a week go by that there isn’t at least one story about a person with either CP or T21 who has been treated badly. Physical abuse, stolen wheelchairs and law enforcement dust-ups are common in my reader.
And then there’s Twitter.
I have hashtag searches set up in HootSuite for Down syndrome and cerebral palsy and for all the righteous indignation from people that of course they aren’t talking or even thinking about people with Down syndrome when they use the r-word, I can assure you that there are plenty of people who do have people like my child in mind and use Down syndrome as an insult in itself. Here are two examples just from the past twelve hours:
being the coolest guy at shennanigans is like being the smartest kid with down-syndrome #waiting
— Drew Mendelson (@RoflSaurusDrew) April 2, 2013
I remember somebody said oomf look like ah chicken with down syndrome…..Lls.!
— -lady ‘ LAMBERT !™ (@_KiaaBrianna) April 2, 2013
The reason this case is getting so much attention is because he died – if he’d lived, most people would have forgotten already.
I don’t know all of the details of the Saylor case, but what’s been reported doesn’t pass the smell test. An innocent young man is dead because a handful of people thought a $12 movie ticket was a big deal. But as easy as it is to point fingers at them and scream for justice, I don’t think doing so is going to help. In fact, focusing on a few people who, if we’re being honest, likely didn’t want Ethan to die and will have to live with the fact that they were responsible for the rest of their lives, misses the big picture.
Despite the hype, the death of Ethan Saylor wasn’t just the fault of a stubborn movie theater lackey and three ignorant moonlighting deputies.
So here’s a question from my wife, who works in law enforcement. I was discussin the case with her and expressing my disgust. She asked though about the reports that Ethan was becoming violent and attacking the officers. If this is true, how do we justify not responding to that in a manner in which any other person resisting arrest would be responded to. And, in her words, we can’t fight for adults with disabilities to be treated like everyone else and then get upset when they get treated like everyone else. Now. I’m not sure I buy the account from the officers. And I agree they all should have just let him stay. But the question needs to be asked I think that if a person is violent and resisting arrest-do the number of chromosomes he has matter?
I’m not trying to be flippant or disrespectful and I believe there’s way more to the story. But she brings up an interesting couple of points.
Side note – I completely agree that we need to change the culture of seeing people with disabilities as less than. You know how I feel about that. And I don’t know what the right answer is in this case. Just thought I would bring up a point I haven’t seen argued yet.
On the one hand, I agree. It feels a tiny bit hypocritical to say “Treat us like everyone else!” and then to ask for special consideration (in fact, that’s going to be the topic of tomorrow’s post). I also have a hard time believing that any of the people involved wanted something bad to happen to Ethan. And while I don’t have a child that is “a handful” – at least not yet – I do appreciate that this was a difficult situation. I’m not even certain that I wouldn’t have sided with the grand jury if I had seen all the facts.
But on the other hand…I can’t help but wonder what impact people’s prejudices played in this situation. Did the theater employee make a big deal about it because he doesn’t think people with Down syndrome should be in public places (as we saw in the restaurant scenario not too long)? Did the off duty deputies think that Ethan didn’t have the mental capacity to know if they abused them (not saying they did abuse him)? Did the grand jury look at the case and think to themselves that because Ethan was a “burden to society” that he was “better off dead” and opt not to punish the officers, even if they thought what they did was wrong?
So yes, it’s complicated. And murky. And pretty awful all the way around.
To the commenter “K”…..This is a great question, that is deserving of a solid answer:
“She asked though about the reports that Ethan was becoming violent and attacking the officers. If this is true, how do we justify not responding to that in a manner in which any other person resisting arrest would be responded to.”
If you visit Chief Scott Silverii’s blog (Bright Blue Line) at the link below, scroll down to Julie Adcock’s comments, and get the perspective of a LE Officer. Her thought is to “de-escalate” by never letting the situation escalate:
“Rather than setting up an adversarial situation by requesting or ordering him to leave, I would have asked him questions about food, friends, etc. until I found something that piqued his interest and built on that to encourage him to go to something interesting, rather than being ordered to leave. It may have taken a bit more time than the theater manager would have liked, but it would have been a far better solution than what happened. I have used this technique on both the mentally ill and special needs people with great success.”
http://scottsilverii.com/2013/03/28/death-by-down-syndrome/
I don’t think anyone expects law enforcement to not defend themselves if someone is using force…I think the concern in this situation is that the response didn’t match the “offense”, if there even was an “offense” to deal with.
In Ethan’s case, the facts don’t indicate whether he did become violent or not (other than screaming “I want my Mommy” out of sheer fear and terror). Some news coverage suggest he got mad and that he had a temper in the past; others show that he had a lot of respect for the police and I’m sure that if the officers just chatted for a minute, they would have made a friend instead of killing a mother’s son.
Until the officers break the “Code of Silence” and clear their consciences, we are going to have to wait for the civil lawsuit or, hopefully, the FBI, to bring the facts to light.
Again, great question, and I hope the answer was helpful.
Thanks for serving, and Rock On!
LBD
I would absolutely agree that de-escalating and having some compassion may have changed the outcome (and I say may, because we don’t know that if Ethan was volatile that he would have responded to de-escalation attempts). You can’t be sure they would have made a friend. That said, it goes right back to the question of how would any other patron have been treated in that situation. Would a man without DS been asked to leave? Yes. Again this begs the question, why are we asking for disparate treatment of a man simply because he has DS? And lest you think I’m being insensitive, I absolutely believe this situation should have and could have been handled differently. However, I agree with Andi that this isn’t as clear cut as the officers needing to “clear their conscience” and I think that’s a dangerous path to walk in assuming. Law enforcement officials are called upon to make split second decisions every moment of the day. They use the information they have in their experience and in their training in order to assess a situation and act swiftly. If Ethan had become violent and lashed out at other patrons in the process, people would be arguing that law enforcement was too easy on him because he has DS. Do you see how the officers are basically in a no-win situation?
That’s not to say that officers don’t make mistakes and that they likely did not have ENOUGH training in the area of adults with disabilities to make possibly a better decision. But it’s very easy to judge negatively without actually having been a witness.
I’m not saying what happened was right, or that it couldn’t have gone differently. But to automatically assume the officers are in the wrong and at complete fault certainly doesn’t help our cause in seeking the truth either.
I believe a man with DS, watching that caliber of a movie, made people uncomfortable. I believe people complained. I believe the attendant found an opportunity to remove him with grave consequences.
Thank you for being the voice of reason LBD.
Holly, I would be willing to bet that may have happened.
Interesting point you made about the movie. Zero Dark Thirty opens with a horrific torture scene. I’m a 40 year old man, served in the Army and lived through some pretty grizzly stuff (including seeing a man chopped in half at the waist by 2 tanks)… that torture scene had me in tears, it was soooo brutal.
Could you imagine being Ethan – a man that loved the military and the police, and who by all accounts made fast-friends with nearly every police officer he met – having to struggle with that depiction of his heroes?
And then, being confronted by people barking orders at you when you think you are following your chaperone’s direction? Ethan must have been scared out of his mind.
Peace,
LBD
That’s a lot of if’s.
As I said, the facts don’t indicate whether Ethan actually did become violent or not (other than screaming “I want my Mommy” out of sheer fear and terror). I think that Regal theater initially released a statement about Ethan’s behavior that they later had to retract (because it simply was not true).
Having said that, I do presume that off-duty police are in the wrong (and believe I will be backed in this belief by any number of LE professionals) when I look at the known facts of this case. If I am wrong in my assessments of these men and their abhorrent behavior, they should come forward, rebut the presumption, and clear the air.
Here are the facts from which I deduce police wrongdoing:
– an unarmed 26 year old man dies in a movie theater in a situation where no other person was arrested, there is no threat of bodily injury to any other person, and there is no imminent loss of substantial private property (a $10 movie ticket is not substantial private property).
– a man is hog-tied and placed face down, under the weight of 3 grown men, while in police custody (a practice that most competent professional in the LE community banned a decade ago, particularly when you talk about restraining obese people…this isn’t new knowledge, it’s “the sky is blue” kinda stuff). If you need to restrain a violent obese man (which Ethan was not, by the way)? There are other – more effective – restraints you should be trained in.
– a health care worker tells OFF-DUTY cops that she has the situation under control, and the OFF-DUTY cops ignore her. (More than one police chief has told me that at that point, the appropriate response is for the police to withdraw, unless the health care worker specifically asks for help, and then only remain involved to provide the specific help requested).
– bystanders that sought to intervene on Ethan’s behalf were scared off and intimidated by the off-duty officers (i.e., no badges or sheriff’s uniforms that could prove that they were acting under color of law).
– the coroner ruled it a homicide by positional asphyxiation. A police officer that doesn’t know what positional asphyxiation is, or that causes a person to die from it, was most likely NOT doing their job. This is “the sky is blue” stuff, for the last 10 years at least, in the LE community.
I’m not commenting on the “different treatment” aspect at this time, as I think it sets up a false choice, or a red-herring. Check out my blog, it’s a post I’m working on and a topic I will post on in the near future.
What I am saying is that these 3 thugs – by all accounts that have been published – were too quick to escalate and go to physical force.
Frederick County Sheriff’s office has a history of that type of behavior, and we are asking the FBI to investigate before they kill someone else.
http://littlebirdsdad.com/2013/04/02/ask-the-fbi-what-is-going-on-in-the-frederick-county-sheriff-day-2-of-8-days-for-ethan/
In fact, police officers in general don’t have the training to be aware of physical, mental and medical difficulties of the people they encounter leads them to poor decision making. …whether that person is a diabetic, has DS, is schizophrenic, etc. And they ought to – it may make the difference between killing another person or losing their own life someday.
If we are going to give these 3 men the ability to defend their decision to hog-tie a man with Down Syndrome over a $10 movie ticket, falling back on the split-second decision making their job requires, then they MUST be expected to do a thorough job of assessing the situation – which they did not.
Peace,
LBD
LBD has made some excellent points, to which I’d like to add two points: The grand jury, in deciding not to bring charges against the officers, heard from NONE of the 17 eyewitnesses in the theater at the time. Only the 3 officers and the Med Examiner testified. The ME, though he did classify the death as a homicide, also wrote “This individual was already compromised by his Down’s Syndrome” [sic]. In other words, he died because he was disabled. There are no special qualifications to end up on a grand jury. Knowing how those with ID are generally treated, are you confident the grand jury was a shiny example of impartiality & fairness?
Additionally, I’m not a cop but I graduated with honors from the LAPD academy – while I have a fairly decent appreciation of how fast things can go south and the need to protect yourself, the **appropriate** use of force was also hammered deeply in our brains. I do not see, in this situation, ANY need for force. Not over a movie seat. Not when his mom was on the way. Not when his aide was nearby.
That being said, I’m playing Monday morning quarterback because I really don’t know how it went down. Because no witnesses testified. That is why we’re calling for an independent investigation.
KRLR,
I did not realize those details about the grand jury, thanks for sharing them.
I did find it very intriguing that they put written statements from the witnesses, and not the real people. They were – and still are – very much afraid of the emotion of this case, and the trauma those people witnessed.
I am very much in support of an independent investigation. I have a petition, asking the White House to direct the FBI and the DOJ to investigate civil rights abuses and police brutality in Ethan’s death. Link: http://wh.gov/LMDL (We have made huge progress…10 more signatures, and we become one of a very small number of petitions publicly visible on the White House site, and one of the small handful that are serious issues).
In my blogs “8 Days for Ethan”, Day 2 was set aside for asking the FBI to investigate what appears to be a pattern of civil rights abuses from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. http://wp.me/p37gLn-m6
I hope you will join us at 8 Days for Ethan. Pick up with us tomorrow at Day 5, or start from Day 1.
Rock On,
Little Bird’s Dad
Um, already there – we’ve been on the same FB chats. I use my super secret code name in ‘public’ though, so that confuses people. 🙂 Carry on.
Gotcha, Special Agent KRLR. 😉
Thanks for your support and help, you rock!!
LBD
I’ve signed a petition on change.org for an independent investigation. Granted, I was not there but I am fairly certain they ignored his signs of distress. They turned him over and began CPR- it was too late.
I’ve been reading all of the comments here and although there have been a few thoughts related to how to Ethan’s T21 played into the situation, something else jumped out at me. I’ve heard it said (here and elsewhere) that the off duty deputies should have treated him differently when they saw he had T21 (a point that k questioned up top), but from what I’ve read, a lot of the complaints stem from law enforcement doing things that wouldn’t have been acceptable in this situation, no matter who the individual was. If the department has a history of abuse, I doubt all of the abused had disabilities. If it’s standard practice not to leave someone on their stomach while cuffed, did they do it, anyway, to others?
So I guess a part of me wonders…were they treating him just like anyone else (i.e., badly), and is that the REAL problem? Is his T21 a complicating factor, but not really the main issue at all?
Yes, I think the Ds is complicating – in that the resulting ID led to his reluctance to leave the theater (to ‘transition’ smoothly) & not comply w/the theater’s & officers’ requests, and his weight which heightened the risks of positional asphyxia, and maybe a heart condition to boot – but I think it REALLY came to play in the grand jury’s decision not to prosecute. Why ruin three upstanding police officers’ lives over THAT guy? The ME’s report blaming Ds just gave them an out.
…sorry, pressed enter too soon. I think the real issue IS the officers’ inability to navigate the situation & use reasonable, *proportionate* force, and their disregard for the gazillion advisories about positional asphyxia. But I -for one- am up in arms because the conversation about & prejudice against those with Ds/ID made this particular case easy to sweep under the rug. Just imagine the reaction if any other minority died over a movie ticket.
Andi madey point much clearer than I could have. The issue for me should revolve around inappropriate use of force period, independent of Ethan’s DS. I’m I’m no way defending the officers or justifying what happened. But I think the straw argument here is that the whole thing happened because of Ethan’s diagnosis. Because if you reduce it to that you allow them to justify inappropriate use of force against “typical” individuals.
Where is the security video? Has that been out there anywhere? Not that I’d want to witness it personally, but that would answer a lot of questions I’d think. That may be why I haven’t seen it-it may answer them too clearly…
What a heartbreaking story. I didn’t know of it until I read this post. You are right that the entire culture is to blame. Change is needed.