Man stalking woman, excused by saying he must be autistic..

[AutismIsStigmatised]

I came across this video on TikTok today, I'll post the link below but in summary an unknown man posed as an amazon delivery person to get access to a block of flats this woman lives in. He was behaving strangely and wanted to give her a 'gift' which was some sort of cup / candle holder. She confronted him and he left, then came back up again, left again then came back up a third time with his hood up as though he was about to do something sinister. Very bloody creepy.

vm.tiktok.com/ZMNsQfG2W/

The comments are littered with people saying that he's 'clearly autistic'

Take a look and tell me what you think but as the parent of an autistic boy (and wife of an autistic adult) it really upsets me when people assume scary/criminal behaviour is due to autism. I know many people with autism and not one has ever behaved like that..

Because you have literally said he assaults you!!!

@shandywan I've worked in one before. Part of the mental health hospital campus but not a psych ward so has trained LD nurses and staff. One of the wards was a forensic/low secure ward for people who had committed crimes but didn't have capacity due to their LDs

But if you were so severely disabled by your autism that you needed carers constantly, how would you even know be able to do something like what's mentioned in the OP?

If you were under the assumption that your son will never ever be arrested because he’s autistic then I’m afraid you’re in for shock

In my country, the police have shot and killed men with disabilities. I blame our crappy health care system, lack of residential beds, families who refuse to recognize how disabled their grown sons are as well as the police, but police arriving to a situation where violence has occurred aren't arriving w/ pre-knowledge of a person's situation.

Anyway it a shame this thread has gone off a tangent. But going back to the video in the OP - THANK GOD the girl has her head screwed on and went with her gut. There are SO many people pleasing young women who would have let him near her door, pandered to him and hoped he’d just go away. NOT that I’m victim blaming women who do that - my point is tbat it should be all about the victim not the perpetrator. We need to focus on their rights, on empowering women to not tolerate this behaviour and to go with their gut. The focus should not be on ‘but what if your perpetrator was X Y and Z’. The narrative must always be about the safety of women

The severely autistic person would be with a carer. The police would talk to the only person who can understand what they are saying.

You all realise Hail is just taking is piss out of all of us...

Because no one could be misunderstanding what is clearly written here and no one serious would be basically doing "oh well it's ok they sexually assaulted someone because they didn't realise"...

Yes. A woman's safety must always be the most important!

If he can’t be out unsupervised committing criminal acts then it’s literally not a worry, is it? He’s unlikely to harass women on the train or at their home because he is properly cared for and supervised. Presumably you would not allow him to attack children or sexually assault women in public changing rooms so your son is unlikely to be apprehended for a crime as he’ll be correctly supported to make sure he isn’t able to carry out any illegal or inappropriate behaviours.

Amen.

Places such as this I imagine:
www.elysiumhealthcare.co.uk/learning-disabilities-autism/services/

possibly a secure psychiatric hospital or unit. Broadmoor is a hospital, so is Rampton. There are others, but those are probably the most recognizable ones.

You wouldn't but if your carer wasn't doing their job properly, you might be able to go for someone quickly, like in a post upthread.

Well it’s highly unlikely he’d be out alone but if your son WAS out alone and assaulted someone then yes he would be arrested

Yes true, she was very fortunate to escape unharmed. I did wonder why she ran outside and down the back steps though? Did I misunderstand part of the video maybe? If I was her I’d have gone back into the flat and locked the door while ringing the police. What if he’d caught her on the steps?

Tell me how they can’t be?!

The officers need to make fast decisions for many, many reasons, and short of someone saying ‘oh he doesn’t understand what he’s done’, they’d have no reason not to arrest an adult man who assaulted or sexually assaulted someone.

If we allow that kind of exemption then we would be fucked. Every dangerous man would claim he’s not arrestable because of XYZ.

Why do you think they arrested the man who threw the boy off the Tate balcony?

. I did wonder why she ran outside and down the back steps though? Did I misunderstand part of the video maybe? If I was her I’d have gone back into the flat and locked the door while ringing the police. What if he’d caught her on the steps?

It looked like the emergency exit stairs, so they wouldn't meet, and she had a head start. I guess maybe she worried he'd try and break into the door so she took the chance to run.

Correct. But of course, this time, it started with my response to the obviously very autistic man in the changing room.

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet it's not the same type of 'arrested' though. If he for whatever reason escaped one of his carers and did something illegal, such as bite a chunk out of someone (he's done that to me once), the police might arrive yes and they'd take just one look and know very instantly he's severely disabled. And they would probably do it anyway, but would know full well the rights they read out will be falling on death ears

And then they'd get him to the station and probably be driving their wondering what the bloody hell to do and how to manage him as he has no understanding or ability to verbalise. They'd be falling over theme levels for medical help to determine what they were dealing with

It really wouldn't be the same sort of 'arrest' if he was indeed arrested

Yes because of the swathes and swathes of carers we have at the moment

If we allow that kind of exemption then we would be fucked. Every dangerous man would claim he’s not arrestable because of XYZ.

Oh come on. Severe, profound autism is bloody obvious and can't just be 'claimed'

I should have said 'if he's with a carer.' Also, with this 'type' of autism the perpetrator could just as easily be female. Severely autistic people tend to lash out as an immediate response to something, they can't plan an attack, they don't have that capability.

When he is an adult, a fully horn large man, there’s very little a (likely female) carer could do should he decide to assault someone.

Please do not think your son will never go on the hurt someone because he has a carer with him. He hurts YOU by your own admission. And if he did, he would, rightly, be arrested.

Please, tell me how a person can be arrested when they have literally no understanding of what is happening to them?

Do you really not think that a suspect of a crime isn't arrested if they don't understand what is happening?

They may (and obviously should) be arrested in a way that shows reasonable accommodations and there are clear guidelines for police in sensitively and safely managing arrests of suspects with additional needs.

But what's your genuine belief of what would happen if a non verbal, autistic person harmed someone in public but had no understanding of it being wrong? That the police wouldn't arrest them? They absolutely would because their duty of care means they are tasked with minimising risk to the public and de-escalating live incidents.

What do you think would happen in such an instance, if you don't believe they wouldn't be arrested?

I agree with both of you, but heed @entropynow.
I would have said the same as you a couple of years ago @Kanaloa.

DS has an Aspergers diagnosis, and he has been arrested on false claims. When he was checked in he was asked about medical conditions, so told them. We had been informed he was under arrest but they wouldn’t disclose why, just to say he was ok. He wasn’t allowed a phone call, but had an on duty solicitor assigned. He was told to say no comment to everything, so he did. Whereas if one of us had been able to go in and support him, we would have told him to answer everything. We knew the background story, and he was not guilty of anything.

Anyone with the diagnosis is entitled to an appropriate adult - Don’t ever forget that, and drill it into them. We have the full police report, and he was denied an AA, as he ‘can read and write’. We had also been contacting to say he needed one. It is disgusting.

Hopefully the man gets apprehended, and I have absolutely no sympathy for him. That poor girl!

He’s not safe, whatever his condition - but to say someone is autistic because they did that is not on.

OK, the more you say, the more obvious you make it that you know fuck all about autism. Severely autistic individuals cannot function in society without a carer (a parent can be a carer too). If a severely autistic person was found wandering about alone, the relevant authorities would be contacted and they would be taken somewhere for their own safety.