To think an autistic child should not be treated like this by the police?

[Immoralplant]

I don’t know the background to this video, but at no point is there any suggestion by the police that this autistic teenager has done anything other than say words the police didn’t like.

I am absolutely shocked that this is happening in Britain.

IABU - that’s an appropriate police response to homophobic words
IANBU - those police officers should be sacked

Warning: the video shows scenes of an autistic teenager being hurt.

twitter.com/SineadKelly113/status/1689176155562143744?s=20

I watched this video yesterday. It is awful the child is clearly so upset. I really don’t understand why she had to be arrested at the time. In those circumstances if everyone had stepped back and allowed her to calm down and then a conversation could be had.

Really though she is 14 whether she was talking with no filter as she is autistic or was trying to wind the officer up nothing is ever really going to come of it. Possibly community resolution where the child writes a letter of apology.

It doesn’t justify the arrest/ dragging her along/ holding her for 12 hours.

I understand 💐

I’m autistic but become ultra compliant when stressed.
DS is the opposite, I really worry for him sometimes.

Unless I get lucky and end up with the one officer in the building who's got an autistic kid

This, but it’s not just the police is it? It’s everywhere. People just don’t give a shot, even if they’re in a position of making or breaking a child’s life.

That is deeply distressing. That's a terrified youngster, effectively being kidnapped from her parents by 6, 7 large adults in full uniform.

Autistic or not, that kid was terrified. That's just pure sadism. In a police force.

I guess she'll never trust police again. Brutal, absolutely brutal.

Wtf were they thinking????

Possibly community resolution where the child writes a letter of apology.

Absolutely not wanting to start a disagreement, but this shouldn’t be an option in this case, as the girl would be apologising for being autistic, which is not ok.

Just like the 19 yr old in the case I linked above shouldn’t have had a curfew or a fine.

Absolutely. She was clearly posing no immediate/current physical threat. The police seem excellent at escalating situations and utterly shit at de-escalating and bringing about peace.

What crime had she actually committed?

Surely there needs to be a crime before it can become a hate crime?

I’m interested in what the crime she was actually charged with?

ItsFun yes you’re right. Although you can also be arrested for a ‘hate incident’ which is where someone might feel someone else has slighted anyone with a protected characteristic. It’s very vague and can sit on your record as you having committed it. I hope this young person doesn’t have a hate incident on their record because of that police officer.

I’m interested in what the crime she was actually charged with?

AFAIK they have released her without charge.

I'm horrifed by this. Disgusting behaviour from the police and that female officer is the worst. A male officer can be heard saying its in relation to "Hate speech" That's what it's about. They've entered that vulnerable child's home and man handled her like she's a serious criminal, for saying the word "lesbian" That word has triggered the officer so much, she looks furious! She's not in the right job, if she's going to get that wound up by a teenager! The worst part is her saying "I don't care" about the girl being autistic. So it's OK to discriminate against disabled people, but don't you dare say the word lesbian!!

As someone who works with people who have Learning Disabilities and often Autism as a co-existing condition and am autistic myself... whatever the background behind the events on film - it's a pretty terrible example of how to communicate with an autistic person who is not threatening the police at all and is in a state of high arousal and it does almost seem that the police were actively wanting to escalate the situation to one requiring physical restraint.

I was actually talking to a colleague who works in a liaison role with the criminal justice system the other day and she was saying that there is still a frustrating element within the police who do not want to hear messages regarding communication difficulties and ways to de-escalate situations where people have communication difficulties (including autism within that for the social communication difficulty element).

If someone is that wound up and frightened and on the brink of or in a meltdown - keeping on talking AT them with lots and lots of language coming very very fast is just going to feed that... drop the level of your language down to the bare minimum, step back and give some space if possible (the girl was not going anywhere and they could have quite easily covered possible escape routes and let her regulate back down a bit while dealing with the angry mother) - you are going to get nowhere but a more fraught and fucked up mess trying to barrage someone with legal jargon in that state. And added into that - explain the legal jargon in terms the person can understand - no wonder the percentages of people in the criminal justice system who have some form of communication needs is so flipping high. People also panic and go into fight or flight mode when they're not understanding a conversation and just want it to end - and some of the ways people have learnt to hide when they're not understanding a conversation can be "wrong" - telling someone to "fuck off", pulling hoodies up to reduce environmental overload and avoiding eye contact to try to focus cognitive processing onto understanding what's being said (then you get the "they won't look me in the eye - they're shifty" stuff), agreeing to anything said to them when they don't understand it just to try to get the interaction over with - you can understand how things escalate and lives get messed up this way.

Thankfully most of the police we work with will ring our duty teams, check with us that clients have communication needs and at least try their best to follow the more appropriate ways to support them. Even in cases where it's an arrest - back to the station - stern talking to and release... they'll flag it up to us and contact us to check that the stern word is likely to have been something that the client will have understood.

So an autistic teenager using the word lesbian in her own home is hate speech that warrants the presence of 6 police officers physically dragging her from her own home?

So why is using a hurty word in passing bad but manhandling a child with a disability absolutely fine?

I hope heads will roll over this especially that smug blonde - and why did she need ‘back up’ - but I won’t hold my breath at anything other than a cursory meaningless non apology

I agree

My daughter has autism and Tourette’s. Unfortunately she has coprolalia which means her tics can be very sweary/inappropriate/offensive. Her tics are so much worse when she’s dysregulated/anxious.

Last year a former classmate started stalking her. We had to get the police involved. The first 2 officers we dealt with were great, however, following a further incident, second set were awful and far more interested in reminding her about her “offensive language” (tics) than the behaviour of the person stalking her. They were quite passive aggressive in the way they spoke to her, which she found very confusing and when she got upset, she got more ticcy, which seemed to prompt them to wind her up even more.

I had to step in several times to remind them of her disabilities and we actually put in a complaint about their behaviour.

I don’t know whether they genuinely didn’t understand her disabilities, or were just being awful on purpose, either way, not good enough

They need the same kind of training they get for LGBTetc issues.

I agree.

That was very distressing to watch, regardless of whether she had autism or not.

When my friend phoned the police for DV and the guy was violent and kicking the door and windows in and saying he had a knife and was going to kill her, they only sent 2 police officers.

It’s common knowledge how police officers are put in dangerous circumstances all of the time because there just aren’t enough of them to go around in groups all of the time.

In America there have been several cases of police officers killing autistic people (usually black) and in this country at least 1/3 of people in jail are ND.

But I’ve never seen such a large group of officers, especially one going after one teenager who apparently all she did was be homophobic (not ok obviously).

The fact that she was arrested by 6 officers is insane and I just hope there’s more to it.

They never will, because that means actual change, and would probably take more money and effort than having a pride wrapping on a police car….

For anyone who hasn't gone to TikTok to find the mother's account and see what happened, this was her post describing what originally happened (after the video had been deleted a couple of times - that's why the video that's currently up was edited and there's audio missing, apparently):

go back and watch the original video...my daughter was brought home by police..they said they brought her home to make sure she was safe. the officers never entered my home and told me my daughter WAS NOT under arrest. so I took my daughter out of the officers arms (she was gripping her so tight her arms had gone bright red due to lack of bloodflow) and guided her upstairs. As she was walking upstairs, bearing in mind the officer is still OUTSIDE my home my daughter turned to me and said "I think she's a lesbian like nanna julie"..and with that, the officer lunged at me, assaulting me while I had my back turned, and tried to grip my daughter. my daughter was so scared she ran inside the cupboard and made herself as small as she could. she repeatedly told the officer sorry and was crying saying she didn't do anything wrong. you see with autism she has no filter and is quite literally LITERAL in everything she says and does. this is the main reason she is misunderstood. my daughter was not aggressive, and did not raise her voice. instead she punched herself in the head several times due to the officer staring at her through gritted teeth and clenched fists. that officer was intimidating my child. she also never cautioned my daughter and never placed her under arrest, so it was both unlawful and illegal what that officer did. and not only that, but I also explained my daughter has severe scoliosis and a twisted spine, but it didn't stop

If that's even vaguely true...does it change any of the "I won't believe it" folk's mind?

I agree.

Any person would feel overwhelmed by 6 officers backing them into a corner and screaming and shouting.

They should have all waited outside apart from the one man who sat beside her talking calmly to her and explained the situation and discuss with her and mum that they need to come to the station and to do it in the calmest way possible.

Obviously we only saw a clip and it does sound like mum was refusing entry to the police officers but it still does not take 6 officers.
A calm approach would have got her out of there much quicker and resulted in a lot less stress for everyone involved.

While absolutely upsetting, sadly this doesn't surprise me. Police were awful with my child, with one even stating that he didn't have any knowledge of autism. I've lost a lot of respect for the police force through my limited interactions with them.

No, the idiot woman should have just left. At no point did the child need to go to the station. For what? I hope all of them are sacked, any of them should have said why are we here and reported their colleague for wasting police time and inappropriate use of calling for backup.

it does almost seem that the police were actively wanting to escalate the situation to one requiring physical restraint

I agree, and it seems like a fairly common policing tactic. Wind them up to the point they can justify using force.

Also not a crime to refuse police entry to your home, they have to have consent or a warrant.

From the mum's account I posted above, she wasn't refusing entry - in fact, she didn't get a chance, because the original officer was outside the house when the comment was made and ran into the house to grab the girl; there was no opportunity to refuse. To my understanding, that should only be done without a warrant when there's significant danger to someone in the house.

If the facts given are broadly true (which, obviously, is yet to be determined legally), at least one of those officers could find this a career-ender. Assault and arrest without caution or cause are about as serious as it gets.

And this is why I have been teaching my Autistic teenager for years that if he ever gets caught up in anything involving the police that he tells them he is Autistic at the earliest opportunity and make sure they hear him. It’s not to excuse any bad behaviour, it’s to make it less likely that the police escalate the situation by assuming he is NT, and give them a chance to change how they deal with him to keep things calm.

He’s a rule follower, but you never know what his mates, and peer pressure, might lead to as he gets older.

The police wear body cameras. But they can be conveniently broken or not working when it suits them. Speaking from experience.