Viviana Solorio

Prof. Batty
English 113B
May 9, 2016
Police Against Disabilities
Every day there is someone with a disability getting harassed by a police officer. This is
something that happens frequently. Everyone has their own struggles, but people with disabilities
are treated differently than everyone else. One reason they might not be able to stand up for
anyone dealing with the same thing is because they either wind up dead or in a state where they
are not able to talk about it. Police are able to get away with the deaths of those who are disabled.
In many cases the officers are trying to defend themselves. Many people get abused or harassed
by the police on the daily. To them someone who is acting unusual is someone who is under the
influence of narcotics or alcohol. Not everyone is mentally stable, and not everyone is out there
trying to kill someone. The mentally ill always get mistaken for trying to resist the police but in
reality the way they approach the person frightens them even more. If police officers knew more
about each disability and how to handle each one there would be less deaths. These people dont
do drugs, dont do unusual things, and shouldnt be mistaken as easy targets; therefor police
officers should get intense training.
To be able to understand why the police are poorly instructed to deal with disabled people
we have to analyze the ways they have chose to deal with cases. Every year people with
disabilities are being beaten, held, pushed, joked, and many other things. Hundreds of
Americans with disabilities die each year in police encounters, and many more are seriously
injured. (Center) Police officers dont get sent to jail, because most of the time they arent found

guilty. In 2015, a woman was shot in her own home because the police felt threatened. As told in
the article How Police Can Stop Shooting People With Disabilities, the police showed up to
the house because they got a noise complaint from the neighbors. Before they even got to the
house, the police knew that this lady was mentally ill. Due to lack of training they probably had,
they didnt approach in a proper way. They didnt try to keep her calm, but instead frightened her
off even more. The police had no patience with her situation. They had a chance to deal with her
differently and the picked the wrong one. Instead of trying to convince her to take her to a
hospital and keep her calm. They broke down the door to enter the room and frightened her even
more. Her first instinct was to pull out a bread knife to defend herself. As soon as they saw the
knife the police began to shoot. This lady suffered life threatening injuries, but survived. This
shows that police are easy to react instead of actually analyzing the situation. A call for help
shouldnt result in someone dying.
Police are usually caught up in the moment that they dont listen to anything the person
has to say. In this case actions speak louder than words. A deaf person was not able to hear the
officer but they didnt know that. When this person was not able to hear what the officer was
trying to say, they got mistaken for trying to resist them. That person was not able hear, and
now their in trouble. In the article by Workers World, people who are hearing impaired [or]
autistic react atypically when approached by police [and] are much more likely to be tasered,
beaten and arrested. (Chediac) There are many cases where a deaf person was not able to hear
a police man and got harassed or injured. People with disabilities shouldnt have to carry a pin
with them that points out their disability. Police officers dont have patience with every single
situation. Regardless if they have a disability or not. Everyone should be given the equal chance
unless they are at a point of trying to kill someone. Cops automatically assume that a person

laying down on the floor is drunk, but probably dont event stop and think that person is having a
seizure. They need to calm down the person and take them to a hospital.
Police have rights, but so does everyone else. Just because we dont serve our country
like they do. More than a third of the people shot by Los Angeles police last year had
documented signs of mental illness (Queally) We can analyze by the deaths that happened in
the past couple of years that they lack proper training. Police officers are able to get away with
these deaths because they claimed that the victim attacked first. We should all have the same
rights regardless of our tittle. It shouldnt make us any different. Many times police have killed
innocent people and their excuse is that they were trying to defend themselves. Those people had
families, friends, and people who cared abut them. Now theyre all grieving, because a police
officer made the mistake to kill that person. They are so easy to pull up a gun to someone, even if
that person was unarmed. Police are here to make us feel safe, and protected. But why is it when
we see a cop we fear them the most. It makes no sense. Police harass many people, but one
fourth of their victims suffer with a mental illness. Ethan Saylor was one of these victims. He
was killed for wanting to watch a movie a second time. This young man wanted to watch Zero
Dark Thirty twice but his caregiver didnt have the extra money to do so. He failed to
understand and went in anyways. Three cops took him out by force, causing them to jump on top
of him. As they put all their pressure on top of him, they were able to crack his neck and he died
in an instinct. They considered it a homicide, blamed it on his weight, and disability. These
officers knew that they were dealing with someone who wasnt mentally ill. It is not right for
someone innocent to die, and let them get away with it. People with down syndrome usually go
into meltdown and become aggressive because they found themselves in social situations they
couldn't handle or understand. (www.healthtalk.org) The problem with the police where that

they were too harsh on Saylor, and didnt respond the correct way. If they wouldnt have caused
him to get a melt down, he wouldnt have been aggressive. This makes police officers seem like
they dont know what they are doing, in fact they need specific training to be dealing with each
illness.
Having considered all these cases, these specific disabilities arent the only ones who get
harassed by the police. People who deal with schizophrenia are the ones who get confused for
being on drugs, but its something they cant control on their own. Schizophrenia is a mental
disorder that deals with hallucinations and delusions. People in this state of mind believe
something is there, when it really isnt. There have been many cases where the police werent
properly trained to control someone with schizophrenia. Usually, people in this mental state tend
to experience the effects it brings when not taking their pills. The hallucinations begin, and this is
when the family calls the police to help control the situation. Two summers ago, June 2014, a
women called the police to help out with her son who has bipolar schizophrenia. This man was in
his late thirtys, he didnt take his medication that morning. On the phone she asked for them to
send someone who knows how to deal with schizophrenia. The police were trying to calm him
down but he didnt do as told. As he began to approach them, she instructed them not to shoot,
and the police still did it anyways. The lack of training these police officer got, shows that they
didnt know anything about this illness. They could have dealt with this situation differently, and
that man wouldnt have died. He isnt the only one who was killed by officers who lack training
based on mental illness.
Although police officers do get training. They might not get enough information for them
to be dealing with the disabled the correct way. Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is a program that
trains police officers how to deal with the mentally ill. Within this program they are taught about

each specific disorder, and the different ways to deal with it. If this program really taught them
how to deal with everything, then why do they always end up killing someone. Someone always
has to die because the police officer didnt take the right path to save their life. The program
shouldnt just inform them about the illness but be more specific in how to deal with certain
situations. I do think that every law enforcement agency has room for improvement in dealing
with people with mental illness and the homeless, and the LAPD is no exception, Weissman
said. (Queally) The program shouldnt be jut taken once, but throughout their whole career.
Police officers should take multiple courses to be up to date to all the new information, and ways
to deal with different types of illness. They shouldnt be scared of the victim since they should be
able to know how to approach them.
In conclusion not all police officers are good people in this world. Some of them take
highly advantage of their rights. People with mental disabilities should be treated with care, and I
know they are protected under protected under the government. Not all cases are believable, and
the death always get blamed on the victim. People who deal with schizophrenia are the ones who
get confused for being on drugs, but its something they cant control. Police need to be really
careful with who they deal with. They should also serve consequences, and justice should be
served. Its not fair for them to get away with the death of an innocent person. The person dealing
with a disability shouldnt have to call the cops for help, since all they do is make things worse.
There should be a number specifically where you can call, and ask for help. It should be with
people that can be able to deal with any type of situations. Whether it be someone having a panic
attack to someone trying to cope with anxiety. Many of these people didnt know that a cry for
help was going to be their last one.

Works Cited
Anon. Damage Cases. 2016 6 April
<http://www.centerforpublicrep.org/litigation-and-major-cases/damagecases/41-litigation/damage-cases/68-use-of-police-force-against-people-withpsychiatric-disabilities>.
Anonymous. Parents of children on the Autism Spectrum. Ed. University of
Oxford. November 2010. 2016 April 05 <http://www.healthtalk.org/peoplesexperiences/autism/parents-children-autism-spectrum/fears-anxietiessensory-issues-and-meltdowns>.
Center, Claudia. How Police Can Stop Shooting People With Disabilities. 20
March 2015. 24 March 2016 <https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/howpolice-can-stop-shooting-people-disabilities>.
Chediac, Joyce. People with disabilities half of people killed by cops; disability
rights groups protest. 24 January 2015. 26 March 2016
<http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/01/24/people-with-disabilities-half-ofpeople-killed-by-cops-disability-rights-groups-protest/>.
Queally, Kate Mather and James. More than a third of people shot by L.A.
police last year were mentally ill, LAPD report finds. 1 March 2016. 10 May
2016 <http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-use-of-force-report20160301-story.html>.