
Video shows 10-year-old autistic boy getting arrested at school - dvdhnt
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/04/19/i-dont-like-to-be-touched-video-shows-10-year-old-autistic-boy-getting-arrested-at-school/?utm_term=.e61719548254
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sersi
Sometimes I genuinely feel that common sense is lacking when it comes to law
enforcement in the US. Arresting people and violence is the first response
when it should be the last response.

I wonder why the US, as a country that defines itself as the "land of the
free" or "leader of the free world", is so prone to resorting to these kind of
extreme actions? There's a certain disconnect between the propaganda and the
reality and it's sad because people suffer for it.

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luizb
This is the land of the hypocrites.

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dvdhnt
While I don't disagree, I do think there's a general lack of empathy here;
we're so overloaded with information, our senses are always tingling at 11/10,
making it even more difficult to understand others or appreciate their version
of the human condition.

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noonespecial
Lets get this straight: A "professional" who claims to and is paid for working
with developmentally disabled children attempts to physically force a child
into a "time out" against his will and is surprised when the child resists...
to the point of thinking that criminal charges against a 10 year old is a
proportionate response?

Perhaps a new profession for this "professional" is in order. Somewhere where
they don't contact people, animals, or scary plants like overly tall grass.

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4WIW
I see a case of clueless police here, not the "evil police". They don't apply
excessive force and are generally respectful. They execute dumb instructions
the best they can; what they don't know is that for this particular child the
experience could be 100x more traumatic than for a neuro-typical child, and
this child shouldn't have been arrested in the first place, even if he
misbehaved.

Instead of blaming police I would see this is an opportunity to educate
everyone on the autism and how to properly deal with it. Especially given the
fact that April is the National Autism Awareness month.

People talk about diversity and inclusion a lot, in the context of gender or
race or anything; I have never heard "diversity specialists" talk about neuro-
diversity even though this impact major part of the population. This has to
change.

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chki
It is quite interesting how I as a European citizen often come to think I
would understand American culture (because I'm constantly confronted by it on
reddit, hackernews, the NYTimes etc.) but get disproved a lot. Is it generally
acceptable in the US to handcuff children as young as 10 and take them away
from their parents although they appear to not currently be a threat to
anyone? (And btw: can a 10 year old even be an actual threat to an adult?) The
fact that the boy is autistic seems to be the point of the article and (part
of?) the reason for the outrage, but in my opinion the whole process of doing
that to a small child is just unbelievable.

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thatswrong0
America is a pretty large country with big cultural differences between
different regions. I'd imagine the more authoritarian or puritanical
subcultures might be okay with it (who probably are the same people that say
that adults who resist cops had it coming when they get shot / killed
unnecessarily).

I don't think I know anybody personally (right or left leaning) who would
think that it's acceptable to handcuff children like this. I would hope that
most people I associate with would think it unacceptable.

At the same time, this kind of thing is so common that I think people have
been numbed to it. What maybe could be said is that in general, Americans
don't protest this kind of thing as often as they should.

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simooooo
There must be very little going on in the world.

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dvdhnt
Maybe you disagree, but I believe our country's (USA) treatment of individuals
with mental health conditions is extremely important. There is much room for
introspection - could we "fight crime" and improve quality of life by treating
affected criminals medically in lieu of, or in conjunction with, punishing
them criminally?

It speaks to the broader issue of prison reform, not to mention the
embarrassing history of how society has shunned, abused, and generally
mistreated individuals with mental health conditions.

