Half the Victims of Police Brutality Are People With Disabilities, Study Finds

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35654-half-the-victims-of-police-brutality-are-people-with-disabilities-study-finds

Researchers have uncovered a commonly missing factor in police brutality stories: A victim’s disability. According to an in-depth study published this week by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a disabled advocacy group, up to half of all people killed by law enforcement are living with a disability.

This is the case for the majority of the high-profile incidents in the last few years, many of which have become the face of the Black Lives Matter movement, the study finds.

Freddie Gray was a victim of lead poisoning, which can cause developmental disabilities (a fear that’s become more widespread in the aftermath of Flint, Michigan’s water crisis). Sandra Bland had epilepsy, and being jailed without her medication may have unleashed depressive side effects some say lead to her alleged suicide. And officials claimed Eric Garner “almost definitely…would not have died” if he hadn’t suffered from serious obesity — seeming to blame Garner’s disability for his death.

The disabilities featured in these prominent cases, along with many others mentioned in the study, are not always detectable by law enforcement. But others, as with Brian Sterner, who was thrown from his wheelchair by police who though he was faking his disability, and a Houston double amputee shot for threatening an officer with a pen, are impossible to miss.

“Training is a necessary first step. Reforming the system follows closely behind,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the foundation. “The rights of people with disabilities must be respected just like any other American citizen.”

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. This was the same crap they pulled with Ron Kovic for protesting the Vietnam War.

Didn't I read in "Born on the Fourth of July"that they tossed him in a squad car out of his wheelchair, and then ordered him to sit up straight while he told them he couldn't, and that he was paralyzed from the chest down? Isn't this phenomenon many decades old?

[eridani]

2. Indeed it is--but now there are cell phone cameras everywhere n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Police need to stop responding with violence to any perceived 'resistance'.

Somebody doesn't want to do something you told them to? Maybe they've got a damned good reason. How about resorting to talking a bit more and choking, hitting, kicking a bit less?

[Mbrow]

4. It's what bullies do

hurt people that can't fight back.

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. Police need to remember that many disabled people are NOT in wheelchairs,

and they don't hold signs.

The police need to treat EVERYONE with more respect, and give them the benefit of any doubt, since police have ways other than deadly force to deal with most situations.

And just because some paranoid, scared white person calls the police on some kid THEY think is suspicious, should not mean that the cops show up guns a-blazing.

[KentuckyWoman]

6. "training is a necessary first step"

Bullfeathers.

How about jailing the criminal cops who do this crap and evicting anyone out of the force who displays even the smallest disrespect for the people they serve. If these thugs can't treat everyone with the same respect they would treat their own immediate family then they should not ever be a cop.

[daleanime]

8. +1

[daleanime]

7. Training is the second step....

The first is firing, and persecuting where necessary, anyone whose conduct does not meet standards. The best training in the world means nothing if it can be broken with out any penalty.

[Betty Karlson]

10. Hear hear. eom

[LeftyMom]

12. You're missing two more: improved hiring and mandatory and frequent drug tests

including tests for steroids and masking agents.

The simplest, easiest way to fix our police brutality problem right now is to hire women in proportion to the population. Both abuse complaints and abuse payouts are overwhelmingly a problem of male officers. Screen candidates better, stop hiring other jurisdictions problem children, but for fuck's sake just hire a proportionate number of women. It's really that simple.

Then we need to do frequent, unannounced tests for steroids and fire anybody who fails a test. There's a reason you can reliably pick an off duty cop out in a crowd, and unless they're the product of some weird breeding program to create neckless human-bulldog hybrids, it's steroids.

[daleanime]

13. Oh yeah.....

it's an insanely large problem, there's tons of work that needs to be started now.

[marble falls]

9. Kick!

[felix_numinous]

11. If police are getting training overseas

then that would explain their disregard for civil and Constitutional rights. This would be akin to a foreign military operating on domestic soil. Our police need to obey the laws of the land, and be trained by Americans!