13 year old autistic boy arrested for meltdown

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Unfortunately, I experienced a meltdown so I did nasty things to others. Now I really need to 'siam' off. (Please google 'siam singlish')

While that may be true, though I don't concede that point, it's essentially irrelevant. The peace officer's job is to maintain the peace, and enforce the law. If you have a problem with how the law is developed, fine. But that does not exempt peace officers from discharging their function.



This goes to my original point, which is that the school bears the responsibility here. They know of the limitations, the police officer does not. It is incumbent upon them to make this information known, or better yet, to take steps from preventing it in the first place.



No one's blaming the victim here. He did no wrong, and no court would ever convict him in these circumstances. But even if he was acting as a result of provocation, and subject to a recognized disability, the fact of the matter is that the police officer has to stop the disruption of the peace. Arrest is not the same thing as conviction, and even though we may be shocked at the methods used, I am still left with the question of, "What was the alternative?"

When a person is having a violent meltdown, involving both injury and property damage, just what do you propose that a police officer do? When the police officer's attempts at peaceful intervention result in violence directed at the police officer, what then?

Putting my cynic's hat back on, I have not yet disabused myself of the notion that the school allowed the police officer to remain blind to the particular circumstances of the child, so that they could raise a discipline concern that would allow them to remove the child from the school. How do you get a problem kid out of your school? Simple, allow the problem to escalate.

Meltdowns have a tendency to freak the NTs out when they have probably never seen anything like that before...its scary to them. When I was working in a resteraunt I had several meltdowns over being bullied. I am a really big guy who can yell exremely loud. I scared a couple waitresses who ended up going home early and were still crying when they left. They were standing around when I was yelling at the bully they were not even involved. Strange behavior sets NTs off making them more defensive. Police officers have had to deal with violent individuals just about everyday on their jobs. Many of the violent individuals they had fought with in the past have been mentally unbalanced or on illegal subsitances that impare their judgment. The officer has to defend himself and the public before a violent person stikes out. They have seen strange behavior escalate into violent behavior through out their careers. if I came upon a stranger who is acting in a suspicous manner I put my hand in my pocket gripping my mace to get it ready just to be sure. Thankfully I have never had to use it or sprayed anybody on accident. I can see why the cop sprayed or tased the kid who was acting strangely, I personally believe the school should have told the police officer before hand so he could have handled it better with proper information of the situation,

Personally, I found how the police acted to be out of line for, I can remember when I was a kid and had a meltdown and yes, a police officer thought I was some sort of unruly child whom needed intervention.Anyways, the point is that when dealing with autistic people one should never approach a situation with ignorance nor lack of empathy..

Police and schools are, backwards, stupid, and uncaring, and also most police are rogues who think they are above the law, and who go on power trips every time they get into uniform.