Disabled people and the police
Commenter “Ann” has helpfully provided this link that corroborates the story I had reported yesterday about Terence Crutcher, one that’s gotten surprisingly little attention—the fact that he had one fake eye. And it adds another surprise:
“One thing that people don’t know about my brother ”” my brother has a very severe hearing issue in his right ear, and a prosthetic eye,” she said…
Crutcher also ripped the unidentified officer caught on video calling her brother “a bad dude” while riding a helicopter over the scene.
“He knew nothing about my brother,” she said. “I’m not even sure why a helicopter was there versus a tow truck. That’s what I’m trying to understand. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
A helicopter was there because Crutcher was acting in a way that aroused Officer Shelby’s suspicions that he was on PCP and might have a gun. That’s a separate issue from whether those suspicions were justified, and a very separate issue from how Shelby and the rest of the team should have proceeded and might have proceeded if they did suspect it.
But it also raises a larger question I’ve thought of before in the wake of police shootings and the publicity about them: what about a disabled person when confronted by the police? What about a hearing-impaired person in particular?
Here’s a report of an incident that involved a white deaf man and a black police officer. Not that the race of each participant really mattered here, but it shows that this particular issue transcends race.
What’s a deaf person to do if he (or she, but I’ll stick with “he”) doesn’t hear the command to get his hands up? If the person tries to get a card saying “I’m deaf” out of his pocket, that’s a move towards the pocket and can be dangerous. Sign language is also a movement of the hands, and that can be dangerous, too.
Here is a very helpful video that tells deaf people what the pitfalls are and how to deal with them in order to minimize trouble. As you can see, though, there’s a lot of information to learn, and I wonder how many people could remember this and properly execute all of it when under stress. That’s true of all of us, but for a deaf person it’s especially hard and especially important. Note also, the part about the dangers of just walking away without getting permission. How many people—deaf or hearing—know how extremely risky that can be? And of course, a person under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol would have special trouble remembering all of this and being able to do it even if that person wanted to:
Outstanding explanation of how to interact with the police, even if you aren’t deaf or mute.
Even though all of the shootings that have incensed BLM have occurred when the victim was not following commands from police, I have heard no major political leader of either party suggest more public education about how to interact with police. Too simple, I guess.
If a society wishes it’s police forces to focus upon assistance and service it must behave in a way that supports it. When a society tolerates a large segment that behaves lawlessly, yet demands protection from that segment by the police, it forces its police to act proactively in their assumptions, with the predictable results we face today.
“I have heard no major political leader of either party suggest more public education about how to interact with police.” J.J.,
On a related note and to her credit, Hillary tried something like that when, stumping for Bill in 1996, she foolishly used the term “super predator” referring to young ghetto blacks, she’s been crucified on the left for doing so.
This is not specific to people with disabilities, but it’s good advice for dealing with the police that applies to everyone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dGhsRsHXP8
Warning: NSFW language.
Whoops! Wrong URL in previous comment. This is the correct one (I think):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8
I am deaf in one ear and have no idea where sound is coming from. This might be challenging in the case of a cop calling my name or barking orders if I can’t see them. However, without seeing the video, I have always known to move slowly and put my hands up if cops are telling me to. Also, do not make sudden moves and — cooperate! I once had a cop shine a light on me when I was entering my apartment in San Francisco, the outside door of course, and I just kept my hand on the key and did not move but looked at them. That is scary in retrospect and I knew then not to make sudden moves. This is over 30 years ago. But they quit shining the light and moved on. It was in a bad part of the city. Any way… many of these recent victims are not cooperating. And they are not being encouraged to cooperate. Basically, you can’t win in a confrontation with a police officer and so it is best to not try. (certainly there are exceptions to this not cooperating but that tends to be an issue). Thanks for the video – will watch.
It just keeps happening. This time it appears an unarmed black man with mental illness was tazed and gunned down simultaneously. In front of his sister. Police say he took a ” shooting stance” (he had no weapon, but details are sketchy) so they shot him.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/california-police-shooting/
It matters not what the guy is feeling or what his disabilities are. A threatening move looks like a threatening move.
“in pain”? Sure. Lots of people are and some of them intend to suicide by cop.
Get the person help before he’s so badly off that you have to call the cops. Find out what the resources are.
Problem with mental health issues is that we have a limited ability to involuntarily detain people on suspicion of being crazy enough to do something nuts in the future.
I don’t think we want that, so the person who does not comply with treatment, or even show up, is going to be a problem.
Other than telling cops to wait to be shot in order to discern if the shooter is mentally ill or just a criminal, I don’t see what can be done.
It’s easy to talk about de-escalating. Hostage negotiators do it all the time. Usually only takes twelve hours or so and the perp isn’t shooting at anybody. Simple.
Bill,
I caught that on the news. The cops say he not only had both arms in the classic “Weaver” stance pointing at the cops but they thought he had a gun too. That Weaver stance is highly distinctive and somewhat unnatural, in that despite us all seeing it on TV, it’s actually a bit counter intuitive. I can’t imagine any normal reason for adopting it, other than in either holding a gun ready to fire or in trying to give that impression.
Since they thought he had a gun, were they supposed to wait until he fired, just to be sure that his intent was hostile?
Could this be another case of “death by cop”?
Sometimes tasers don’t put a perp down. But they’d still disturb aim.
Perhaps tasers should be deployed earlier in the proceedings, bad optics notwithstanding.
Geoffrey Britain:
When I heard that story, I though “suicide by cop.” Very sad, but that’s what I think was going on—a somewhat deliberate provocation by a person who seems to have been mentally unbalanced.
The Weaver Stance is the best stance for handgun accuracy, bar none. Few not familiar with handguns would naturally assume the Weaver Stance when confronts by a LEO, especially if they have mental health issues. Something seems fishy here.
Police are not the biggest dangers for the Deaf who tend to have a low rate of offense for similar reasons as you worried about. like setting off the alarm, and the claxon is going, and they don’t know it?
what is infinitely more dangerous are those idiot drivers trying to make a yellow light and toot the horn to clear the way assuming everyone can hear.
there is actually a whole host of conditions, many rare, that have caused issues, but seldom reported as part of any problem.
If you’re holding a gun and are confronted by cops with guns drawn, is it really an excuse that you can’t hear their orders to drop your gun that you keep it raised?
JJ makes an excellent point. Police are on edge, and think they’re being unfairly judged. Citizens are on edge, and think police are unfairly targeting and profiling.
This would be an EXCELLENT time for a Presidential candidate to promote better understanding… and to encourage less-confrontational behavior.
(Mind you, it would be even better if the sitting President were to do so. But he doesn’t seem inclined to calm things down.)
What I’d like to see is a candidate who says: “Listen, a lot of people have had a lot to say about police violence. And police forces across the country are under much closer surveillance than they used to be for this reason. But we, as American citizens, should also do our part. Here with me today is a good friend of mine, Police Chief John Q. Smith of XXXXX, who wants to explain how best to deal with the police, so that at the end of the day, we can all go home safely.”
Neo: many thanks for pointing out some of the issues relating to police stops and people with disabilities. It’s not a simple issue. I’m not aware of any cases in which a criminal pretended to be, say, deaf, before targeting police officers… but it’s probably only a matter of time. (You can bet the police are alert for that; they have to be.)
lassitude, I like your userid. I like all such words that are erudite and somewhat out of fashion.
Watching this video, it struck me that ASL must be a rather challenging language. One has to watch both hands, ranging over a considerable physical space with a wide variety of gestures, as well as the speaker’s face. Eyes, mouth, hands, elbows, all in action at the same time. I wonder if it poses any major difficulties if the speaker and listener are not in a direct face-to-face with each other, i.e. in those moments when the oblique view was being shown in that video. Does that angle hamper understanding of any phrases in ASL?
These are all very interesting complications for doing police work. Imagine how many PhDs are necessary to properly comprehend the frailties and dysfunctions of the human misfits one is to encounter in police work. And even if one’s brain is big enough to hold all the information coherently, there is no guaranty that behaviors wont’ be misinterpreted or distorted by threat perception.
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Most of us mammals are here because of a heavy dose of “false positive” perceptive responses. We perceive something and tend to presume it’s a threat, and 90+% of the time our positive response for threat was unnecessary, i.e. a false positive. Imagine our survival prospects if our wiring was the reverse; that it we presume we are safe when we are not.
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Clearly the Crutcher situation was a perfect storm of problems for Officer Shelby. A more experienced officer may have perceived the threat more appropriately. The question is, do we want to establish impossible standards for doing police work. We all need to agree that failure to follow police commands properly increases the threat perception of police and unfortunately raises the risk of death or injury for the suspect failing to obey.
A middle-school friend of mine had brain-damage. At the age of 37 he was gut-shot by a policeman.
Of course he had attacked the policeman, knocked him down, taken the man’s nightstick away and started beating him with it.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
That’s right. The most behaviorally incontinent wind up setting the public agenda for all; and as a result have the privilege of shitting everyone else’s life up – turning the whole world into an accommodationist rubber room … or police state.
I am weary of the mentally ill and their problems.
Thank you Neo for taking up this thread and posting the Marlee Matlin video. I am almost deaf now and if ever stopped by police intend to keep my hands stationary where they can be seen and let the LEO know that I am deaf, but intend to cooperate fully but that I need to know clearly what their instructions are. Here are a couple more video links to training videos for first responders and police:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSKZHZdflmc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9aNpMRHH2c