Violence against autistic teen

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This, I disagree with. If your understanding of speech is affected by autism, even if it is just a pragmatic speech deficit, you will have difficulty understanding why you wind up in certain situations.

For instance, it is not uncommon for kids with Aspergers to use language or gestures that express violence, even when they have no intention of doing so. When they are responded to at face value, they are understandably frustrated and upset, and react accordingly. I can see where, while this child has the capacity to understand things intellectually, he may not know how what he's doing or saying is connected with police intervention and with being tazered. I can easily see where, disability or no, if you've been tazered by them in the past, you might be justified in not trusting someone who says "I'm not going to hurt you."

I'm not trying to argue with you for argument's sake: even though many, possibly even most kids on the spectrum are not violent, violence and violent language is something I've read about from other posters, and run into in the real world as well, in addition to experiencing it myself. I know parents (including us) who thought the violence was somehow our fault: it's really difficult to piece together how it relates to the autism spectrum. There is a stereotype of "nonviolent aspie" that makes getting help much more difficult.

It took lots of detective work for us to figure out my son's behavior had to do with his frustration with communication: I think in his mind people were either being deliberately obtuse or deliberately twisting his words, which I now understand was infuriating for him. In addition, he didn't have a good gauge of his own feelings, and would ignore irritations until they became explosive anger. When we finally understood, we were able to make changes and get therapy that made a real difference.

I wonder if this story would be different if this family had access to the resources we do.

It is possible that there was something else going on with this boy in addition to the AS but not necessarily so. People with autism and Asperger's can be violent. I have a friend whose 14 year old daughter has Asperger's and she has attacked her mother on a number of occasions, leaving her with cuts and bruises. I have also met a couple whose 12 year old daughter with Asperger's threatened her parents over the years and did stab her father in the hand with a sharp kitchen knife.

It is possible that the only thing that was going on in addition to the AS was puberty. Aggression and violence, sadly, are possible outcomes for people with difficulties regulating their emotions, and communicating their thoughts and feelings. He could have been is such a state that he was unable to comply with what the police officers were telling him, even assuming he understood or was able to process in time what they were saying.

I've been violent with my parents and one day mom told me she send me away if I kept doing it. I never used kitchen knives or anything that would kill. I knew if I did that, I'd go to jail. Once mom told me she end me away if I did it again, I stopped being violent because I didn't want to be sent away. Mom told me she still send me away if I had autism (not AS) if I was violent.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to completely disagree with you on this point too. Understanding comes from clear communication. Communication difficulties is just one thing AS is primarily all about. It is in fact, very common for us to misunderstand what we are told, other people's intentions, and what we are supposed to and not supposed to do in any given situation.

Sometimes, unfortunately, these misunderstandings lead to life or death situations.

Not saying that's what happened with this kid. I think it's too soon to be judging or second guessing just yet. Details will come out over the next couple of weeks. When I know more, I might decide what I think, if enough details come out. Until then, I'm zipping my lip.

It's obvious the kid needed help that he wasn't getting. It's unfortunate to say this, but at the rate things were going, this boy would have eventually ended up seriously injuring or even killing another person. I'm going to sound cold, but here's the logical perspective. I don't care if it was a butter knife. You CAN be killed by one. Heck, you can be killed by a fountain pen. The whole situation so far was a vicious circle of the parents continually relying on the the community police force to deal with their child. It was either going end with the kid dead or a police officer dead. Unless there's proof otherwise, I'll just assume the parents weren't trying too hard to get the kid help or contacting a service. They were just putting up with him or dumping him on the cops when things got too violent. Now their son has payed the price for their probable neglect.

Maybe it's a case of a massive cultural divide here, but I cannot see that it is any way acceptable or understandable that a 15 year old boy could be shot and killed in his own home by the people that his parents had called on for help.

No matter what happened in that basement, that child should not have been shot.

It's horrific!

Wow - How has your experience been with being responsible for a kid who has violent meltdowns?

I have to say that when my son was having meltdowns like that, it was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with.

No - I'm just making up a story, but what would you say about the following scenario.

Mom tells aspie kid time to go to school
kid says no - can't make me
kid has said no a bunch of times already, and parents are about to get hauled in to court because of absences
school says - he has to come. If you can't get him there, call the cops to bring him.

What would you have the parents do?

I have had those days - and trust me I am the farthest thing from neglectful.

Now usually - the aspies on this forum jump into what a sh@thole school was for them, and would totally side with the kid, right?

OK, so now...

Cops come and the kid meltsdown
Kids has a BUTTER KNIFE
Cops shoot kid

Why are those same aspis suddenly saying its the kids fault(or the parents?)

Gimme a break

With limited resources, most people just do what the authorities tell them to do - and in my opinion with most ASD kids, that's not a good move. I think blaming the victim is very, very wrong.

I agree with this. As a mom of a hormonal aspergers teen, my heart breaks for this situation.

Should I blame the police? Should we all just wait around until this kid eventually goes too far and offs someone?

It's a tough call when dealing with a person who's naturally violent. What do we do? Do we take him to a doctor? Lock him up? Put up with him? It's hard to say, but it stands that he was a danger to himself and everyone around him. Unless something changed someone was going to die or be thrown in jail.

I'm not blaming the kid over something he can't control. But isn't there anything the parents can do other than contain him? What kind of future did this kid have? It was a butter knife THIS time. What about the next time the police could have been called? The one after that?

I would blame the police for shooting a child, yes. They knew what he was like, they had previous experience with him and they should have had a plan for dealing with this situation which did not involve killing him.

And no, no one should just have waited for the situation to worsen over time. This child and his family should have received help and support long before now. It seems that the police and social services have been involved, certainly over the last couple of years, if not longer. They should have got together with the school, health professionals, his parents and the boy himself to come up with a strategy to help this boy manage his frustrations and aggressive behaviour.

It's not a choice of shooting him or doing nothing. There were many, many options available.

The police were the victim, not the kid.

Think of this scenario:

Former bully victim goes to a new school. Kids there mind their own business and are innocent but they sometimes like to do some playful teasing. One day they wave their hand in front of the former bully's victim's face. The former victim thinks she got bullied just now. Another time the kids sometimes block her way in the halls as a joke and they do this to other kids as well. The former victim still believes she is being bullied and harassed. Same as when kids accidentally bump her in the halls because it was so crowded. One day she gets fed up with the bullying and starts to defend herself. The real victims defend themselves by giving her a black eye because she attacked them. Girl goes home, mother tells her it was her fault because they were defending themselves and they weren't doing anything wrong. By your logic the former bully victim is the victim and the victims were the bad guys because the former bully victim was innocent and she misread their intentions.

Violence is violence. It doesn't matter what was going on in the person's head who was being the bad guy. People have the right to fend for themselves, even the police. This was something I was taught as a teen and even I thought it was stupid then I was considered a bully because I was a bully victim so I thought I was being bullied. Luckily kids didn't defend themselves against me because all I did was shoved them and mom would tell me I was lucky I was not given the black eye. Then eventually I was placed in the resource room full time and I thought it was to keep the kids away from me but not it was to keep me away from the other kids. I even had an aid with me at all times and I thought it was to keep kids from bullying me but no, it was to protect other kids from me. So having a disability does not disqualify you from not being a victim when you be the bad guy. You are still the bad guy and the other people are the real victims, not the bad guy. It took me a while to accept this fact. I was a victim alright, of my own thoughts and me misreading the other kids intentions because of my AS.
Maybe in my teens I would have seen it the same way as lot of you parents because back then I refused to accept that violence is violence and it doesn't matter what is going on in the person's head but I get it now. Disability is not a pass to be excluded from not being the bad guy when they act like one. I would be very surprised if my mother was on the family's side as well instead of the police because then she be contradicting herself from what she taught me and I would call her out on that because then she should be on my side, not the other kids in my middle school and she wouldn't say I was a bully then. She can't have it both ways.

Maybe the officer could have shot the kid in the leg instead and he would have lived. Maybe all the officers should have had a taser with them and use it on the boy. But wouldn't the kid go back to being violent after the thing is taken off him?

I think they should have taken the boy away and get him help. If my own child were violent, I would let social services or the police take him so he get help.

When I was talking about understanding the situation, I meant intellectually understanding it, not whether or not he understood their intentions, but understood what they were saying to him, ie; "Put down the knife now!" I'm sure he understood that waving a knife at a cop can get you hurt. He was 15. He may not have been thinking about that at the time, because during meltdowns it's hard to think straight, but when you are confronted with a cop and he tells you in his cop voice to stop something immediately, on some level you do understand unless you are completely lost from reality.

I think that it shouldn't have gotten to that point, but when it did, I still say the cops should have had rubber bullets. I'm sure they had some available. Knowing there was a violent kid with a disability that they deal with fairly often, you would think they would be prepared to deal with escalating violence without killing the kid. I still believe that you have to be too close to use a tazer, but I'm not up to date on the new models or anything.

As for what the parents should have done, without knowing everything, I can't say. They may have tried and been unable to get help, they may not have tried, they may not have been aware of services, etc. However I do think the cops should have reported him to CPS for his own safety after the first few times and had a social worker out to help.

If that were my child, with a history of escalating violence, I would have his doctor put him in the hospital for a little while and get him stable on meds to help him not be violent. I'm sure that some people are going to call me out about that, but let me clarify. I'm not talking about a little kid, and I'm not talking about an older kid who has bad meltdowns that aren't dangerous to himself or others. I'm talking about a kid who has violent meltdowns (and he may have had violent behavior outside of meltdowns for all we know, we don't know the situation so I'm just assuming meltdowns). If my child had violent meltdowns and nothing had worked to help him up until now, and he was big enough to hurt someone seriously, for my childs safety first and foremost, and for our family and others safety, I would get the doctor to admit him to the hospital and get him stabilized on meds that help him not be violent. When the violence is under control, then bring him back home. Slowly integrate him back into school, while working with therapists and other ways of helping him learn to control it. Then, when the therapists and doctor agrees, take him off the meds and see, but be prepared to put him back on them if need be.

Nobody wants to drug their child. I don't even like having to give my `16 yo Vyvanse for his ADHD, but he says it helps, and I see a difference in him. I would hate to have to give my child stronger meds, and sedative type meds at that, or whatever they use. But, if it would keep him safe, and keep others around him safe, I would do it. That doesn't mean I would stop using other means as well to help him learn to control it. I don't know about what kind of therapies there are for AS/ASD. I never had any, so I can't be specific. But I would work with every professional that I could, and try everything that was available to help him. The violence would be my biggest concern because that is the most dangerous to him, and others.

[quote="OliveOilMom"]

If that were my child, with a history of escalating violence, I would have his doctor put him in the hospital for a little while and get him stable on meds to help him not be violent. I'm sure that some people are going to call me out about that, but let me clarify. I'm not talking about a little kid, and I'm not talking about an older kid who has bad meltdowns that aren't dangerous to himself or others. I'm talking about a kid who has violent meltdowns (and he may have had violent behavior outside of meltdowns for all we know, we don't know the situation so I'm just assuming meltdowns). If my child had violent meltdowns and nothing had worked to help him up until now, and he was big enough to hurt someone seriously, for my childs safety first and foremost, and for our family and others safety, I would get the doctor to admit him to the hospital and get him stabilized on meds that help him not be violent. When the violence is under control, then bring him back home. Slowly integrate him back into school, while working with therapists and other ways of helping him learn to control it. Then, when the therapists and doctor agrees, take him off the meds and see, but be prepared to put him back on them if need be.
[quote="OliveOilMom"]

Does anyone know how to get that done? Impossible in some places. The moment they are no longer a danger, they send the child home, well, with meltdowns, if you're not in one, you're fine, right? So how do you treat something that happens intermittently?

I think what I'm reacting to is some fairly black/white thinking, with the end result a dead child. I am so happy that some of you found your own "off switch", so your meltdowns stopped being dangerous. I pray that my son's are over, and he's 12.

I was talking to my son about this last night and he said he thought the cop voice would have got to him, but then he proceeded to tell me his plan for disarming the five cops.

I know the time he was in a meltdown and ran into traffic, he wanted to die, so it was a choice the adults had to protect him from. Should the teacher have let the bus hit him, because he should have known better?

Wonder what woulda happened if they just let him stay home from school?

I'm done with this thread.

I hope you don't take my comments as me judging you as a parent. I'm not. I'm sure you are a very good and caring parent. You certainly sound like one. My original point is, that it sounds like there may be more going on in addition to the AS. That's all. I'm stating it from my point of view, from the inside of my own AS. If it offends you that my meltdowns are different, and that I am able to understand a situation, there is nothing I can do about that. I didn't have to learn to stop being violent towards others, I had to learn to control my meltdowns somewhat. I didn't even know what they were then. I also wasn't able to until I was in my teens, and I still had an occasional one.

ETA: I never meant to imply that there was something going on with your son in addition to AS. Nor did I mean to imply that you aren't doing everything you can to help your son's meltdowns. Please don't take it that way.

Last edited by OliveOilMom on 03 Feb 2012, 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, while I didn't mention this incident to my son, I've asked him a similar question in the past, and gotten a similar response. I wonder if this is what happened in this incident.

We do go over social stories about how to deal with police, just in case.