Law Enforcement Trains On Working With Autism Community
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Most of these officers from a wide range of agencies have more than likely come into contact with a member of the autism community already.
The Center for Disease Control says one out every 68 children in the US is diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum.
That leads to a lot of safety concerns.
“People with development disabilities across the board which includes autism are up to 7 times more likely to come in contact with police. Since we know those statistics it’s not matter of if some of these guys and gals come into contact with a person with autism, it’s a matter of when,” said Dustin Chandler.
Chandler was a police officer for about 10 years and has an autistic daughter, so this subject is very important to him.
This is his first time teaching a class in Montgomery.
“This training is much needed in our law enforcement and first responder community. It’s something that I feel there’s a need for being an officer for almost 10 years myself. We didn’t hardly have any training on autism,” said Chandler.
He showed real interactions between officers and people with autism during the class. One of the hardest things for officers is how slowly some can respond to questions.
It can take about 15 before some people give an answer.
That’s why Karen Vinson, both a mom of son with autism and a board member of the Autism society of Alabama wanted to see first hand what kind of training the officers are getting.
“An officer may take their actions as being aggressive. They may look like they’re under the influence of drugs or something like that. It’s completely wrong for an autistic person but it looks very similar in an emergency situation,” said Vinson.
