How to 'speak autism' (police article)

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Prisoners with special needs continue to provide challenges for police, correctional, and healthcare security personnel.

For example, a subject is arrested on the street exhibiting bizarre behavior and then the prisoner is brought into your jail for booking or emergency room for medical clearance. The transporting police officers have him in special restraints due to his bizarre and violent behavior. The patient is rocking back and forth in the chair. His wrists are raw and bleeding as he strains against the cuffs. Suddenly he stops rocking and glances blankly around the room, but doesn’t make eye contact with anyone. You step forward and ask him his name. He doesn’t answer. You lean towards his ear and ask a little louder, “What kind of drugs did you take today?”

Immediately, he violently jerks his head away, as if in pain, and starts pulling on his cuffs so hard that it appears that he could seriously injure his wrists. He resumes vigorously rocking back and forth. At this point, you might be making a reasonable assumption — he's on PCP or some other powerful street drug. But your assumption may just as easily be wrong.

The arresting officers explain that he was found on a park bench, naked from the waist down. He wouldn’t answer them or even visually acknowledge their presence. When they shined a flashlight towards his face he shrieked, covered his eyes, and began rocking on the bench. When they attempted to apply a blanket escort hold he backhanded one of them. Then they attempted wrist compression, but it didn’t seem to have any affect, and he just tried to bite them.

Still, he didn’t exhibit abnormal strength and they were able to control him. He did struggle against the handcuffs and began kicking so that the officers eventually had to restrain his legs with a hobble restraint to prevent him from injuring the officers or himself. Under the circumstances, they did an adequate job of controlling the subject. Similar encounters, under same sort of circumstances, have not gone so well.

If I had been there, my first thought would have been that this individual had autism or a similar related disability. I would have considered this possibility because I have raised a son with autism spectrum disorder, studied autism, and controlled many subjects with autism who were in crisis. We have now reached a point, in the public safety professions, when autism spectrum disorders have to become one of our “first thoughts”, whenever we observe certain aberrant behaviors.

They need much more training in these things than they currently get programs like this should be mandatory. Of the times we dealt with the police they knew nothing an we ended up explaining it all to them which they saw as a load of crap just an excuse to behave poorly. Much educational is needed

Here in the UK it is possible to get a card to carry from the National Autistic Society stating that an individual is autistic in case they are arrested or hospitalized.

pixel8 wrote



Who here has one ? How do you go about getting one? ( other than contacting the National Austistic Society obviously )Does it cover AS too? What's the score? - do you need to be dx'd etc etc

I could certainly do with such a thing - in theory - anyone with feedback who has used one of these cards? Did it help in practice?

thanks.

But it said things like, may run away, may not follow directions,