The family of a 25-year-old man with intellectual disabilities who was critically injured after deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shot him called for justice Monday in downtown Los Angeles.
losangeles.cbslocal.com
The family of a 25-year-old man with intellectual disabilities who was critically injured after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies shot him at his Cudahy home called for justice Monday in downtown Los Angeles.
“We are hurt, we are angry,” Yadira Cervantes, the man’s sister, said. “My brother’s not a criminal. We are not criminals, we were treated like criminals in our own house.”
Attorneys said the family called authorities March 31 to help calm Isaias Cervantes, who is autistic, deaf and has intellectual disabilities. Attorney Austin Dove said Isaias was unarmed and, within three minutes after arriving at the home in Cudahy, two deputies body slammed him face forward on the ground and choked him.
“With all that, they’re claiming that Isaias was trying to disarm them…it’s physically impossible,” Dove said. “And so within these seconds, he’s shot in the back from point blank range.”
Wow. Absolute monsters.
Once the bodycams come out, the truth will be known. As to police action in general....the cops aren't called when a person is just sitting around, the autistic Cervantes was no doubt acting in an "unmanageable" manner. For those unfamiliar with autism, one might think of a child having a tantrum, BUT....children having tantrums are motivated in an attempt to get what they want and will resolve either by getting their way, or realizing that they are not going to get their way, no matter how much they scream and thrash about.
Autistics don't have "tantrums," they have "meltdowns." A HUGE difference. They become uncontrollable and they aren't looking for compliance for anything. It's a response to a high level of stress. Transfer that uncontrollable level of response to stress from a child to a full grown adult and you have an actual physical danger on your hands. That dangerous meltdown won't dissipate, once the stressor is removed, as the autistic individual will continue with the actions until he/she has exhausted him/herself out. In this case, adding in deafness only increases the problem.
The family called the cops because they were no doubt fearful for themselves, as well as for the autistic adult. Being deaf, he would not hear the officers and even if he could, wouldn't be able to respond, as he is in the meltdown state.
As to the family saying they were treated like criminals, they were no doubt trying to interfere with the officers trying to subdue him. If you try to interfere with law enforcement doing their job, you too can be physically detained.
Now....as I said, we don't have the bodycam footage, so, we have to wait on that. However, as to where any blame may rest at this time:
1. The cops aren't schooled in dealing with an autistic individual and learning that autistic people having a meltdown, can't control their behavior.
2. The cops don't know that autistics having a meltdown, aren't even aware of guns, let alone actually try to go for one deliberately. The person is just flailing about, not going for specific items.
Blame is partially on the cops there, but largely due to lack of training regarding the mentally disabled and hearing impaired.
3. Being Hispanic, Hispanics have a tendency to keep problem family members close and try and solve issues themselves. Anyone with that severe level of autism that necessitates the police have to be called, should actually be housed in a facility that handles autistics, on medications, supervised and even then such individuals still have meltdowns, but at least they are in places specifically for them. So, some blame goes to the family.
4. City/county government can be blamed for not having 24 hour on-call professionals to become involved when calls dealing with the disabled (mentally or otherwise) persons. That however, may be a budgetary issue.
Last.....leave it to the minority community to ignorantly and publicly jump onboard every cop related incident when it deals with minorities, however, when it involves a white, they keep their mouths shut. There's some blame their for inflaming situations, rather than just letting the family, cops and local government handle the issue.