The difference between MENACE and INNOCENCE

Under normal circumstances, Coeur d’Alene Police Det. Gus Wessel wouldn’t let someone exhibiting odd behavior come within inches of his face, let alone touch him.

He discussed an encounter with a person with a disability when the situation called for patience rather than action.

"He was not looking aggressive, but he came straight at me, came about 6 inches from me and reached up and he looked like he was going to hit me in the side of the head," Wessel said. "I knew this person had a disability. I knew that he didn’t appear to be angry, so I felt comfortable for my safety. So I just held tight, where my first instinct, if somebody else would have done it, would have been to give him a strike to the chest, push him back, not let him get that close initially.

"As he swung up toward the side of my head, he stopped and he petted my hair," Wessel said. "I found out later that that’s what he does when he likes people, and he really likes law enforcement."

Individuals with disabilities make up about 3 percent of the general population, yet they make up about 4 to 10 percent of the prison population, according to The Arc, the largest national community-based organization advocating for and serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

People with disabilities are up to 10 times more likely to be victims of crimes and are involved in the legal system much more than the average person, as both victims and criminals.

That’s why law enforcement officers and first-responders need training to help them identify the difference between a person with special needs and a person who may be up to no good.

"It would have been so easy for me to use force and it could have gone south in a big way in the middle of the street in the middle of the daylight," Wessel said. "But having the tools that I had, I knew, ‘OK, let’s just calm down, I’m not going to make any quick actions to see what he does.’ I kept my weapons covered and it ended up working out all right, where it very easily could have gone the other way."

Wessel, a drug recognition expert and North Idaho College’s school resource officer, told his story Thursday during the fourth day of Crisis Intervention Training at the Coeur d'Alene Police Department. He and Jennifer Cork, a mental health therapist with Big Lake Psychological Services and president of the Panhandle Autism Society, provided education and techniques for those who work in law enforcement, preparing them for times they encounter situations involving people with special needs.

"I don’t have any issue with any of you in law enforcement shooting someone who needs to be shot. I’ve been involved with shootings, I’m good with it," Wessel said to the trainees. "I cannot handle the thought that someone in one of my classes goes out and shoots someone who doesn’t need to be because they just didn’t get it or didn’t know what was going on."

Many times, a person with a disability may exhibit behavior that mimics that of a drug user or addict. People with autism, for example, are known to self-stimulate (called "stimming") and that could be anything from hand flapping to rocking, spinning or repeating words.

Last year in Arizona, ABC15 reported that an unarmed 14-year-old autistic boy, Connor Leibel, was stimming with a string and caught the eye of Buckeye Police Officer David Grossman, who approached the boy and ended up tackling him when he mistook him for a drug user. The boy was traumatized and suffered scrapes to his face and body, and the family filed to sue the police department for $5 million.

In 2016, the Miami Herald reported that a caregiver in Florida was shot in the leg by a policeman while the autistic man he was trying to get back to a nearby mental health center played with a toy truck in the street. The autistic man and his caregiver were unarmed, but the police received calls from neighbors that the truck was a gun. The caregiver, Charles Kinsey, was handcuffed after being shot. He said when he asked the officer why he fired his weapon, the policeman said, "I don't know."

"We’re running into these people all the time," Wessel said. "All the videos we see from around the country, (an officer) shoots someone with a disability unnecessarily, someone gets into a confrontation and uses force unnecessarily, and so that’s something I hope to give officers — the tools to not take those steps."

The need for this training is more important now than ever, especially as conditions like autism and even dementia and Alzheimer's are so prominent in society. Cork and Wessel said it can be assumed that more than 650 children on the autism spectrum live in Kootenai County.

Cork attributes this growing problem for law enforcement and first-responders to the deinstitutionalization of America. When the last mental institutions closed down in the mid-1990s, people with mental, intellectual and behavioral disabilities were thrust out into the world.

They now have their freedom, but potentially at the cost of their dignity and safety, and, at times, the safety of others.

"When they deinstitutionalized people with disabilities, they didn't put community resources in place," Cork said. "A lot of times the topic of parent and caregiver violence, especially when people get to be bigger and might be aggressive when they get upset, people might call the police because they don't have anyone else to call.

"That shouldn't be their job, but there is no one else."

People with special needs aren't always completely innocent. They may lash out during a tantrum and injure someone, cause a car wreck because they wandered into the street, or steal something to fit in with a group of friends.

But Cork said they many times do not understand the gravity of their actions. They may realize they have done something wrong, but not the severity of the consequences.

"This is really one of the first generations of adults that have been allowed to live fully in the community," she said. "We don't want to be on national news like the guy in Florida who shot the caregiver, or the guy in Arizona who tackled the kid who was self-stimming.

"We want people to feel safe," Cork said. "This is a national issue."

These special trainings began about three years ago after Cork and other mental health professionals gathered with concerned parents, law enforcement and community members who identified the need.

Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Deputy Sharron Barkley has been in law enforcement nearly 30 years, and she understands the value of this training as a mom and as an officer of the law.

Her son began receiving treatment for his disabilities nearly 40 years ago when he was 5. She said then it was called “minimal brain dysfunction."

"They didn’t have all these fancy words. They didn’t understand what it was," she said.

They traveled two hours each way once a month so he could see a specialist. Sometimes his medications helped, other times not so much. He ran away from school all the time, almost to the point of suspension.

“He didn't want to go to school in the first place," she said. "School was too hard. He couldn’t learn."

As an adult, her son earned his driver's license but has had run-ins with the law because of his disability. He was arrested for a DUI once when he hadn't consumed any alcohol.

"When he was brought in, he was handcuffed, and I see him and my heart sinks," she shared. "No drugs. And he hasn’t been drinking."

One factor in the high rate of incarceration of special needs individuals is the hammering of questions from law enforcement officers and the person's desire to make the hammering stop. This can lead to false admission of guilt, among other dire consequences.

"When I talk to somebody, I talk very slowly and I explain things to them," Barkley said. "Some of the people I work with, they ask these questions so fast, I don't even understand them and I know the questions by heart."

But every circumstance, every person, every disability, is different. Without the luxury of time, first-responders need to know when to step in and when things, although they may seem odd, do not require interference.

"The overall goal truly is to build a team in the community of law enforcement who is aware of what mental health resources there are, who’s aware of what people with disabilities need and basically build a more holistic approach to dealing with these situations instead of the traditional 'You either committed a crime or you didn't, and we're going to go on our way if it’s not our business,'" Wessel said.

What it comes down to, he said, is communication. He encourages people to get involved with their local autism societies or other disability organizations and to have conversations with local law enforcement or school resource officers.

It's extremely helpful if people with special needs can let officers know about their disabilities right away if they're approached, whether it's through a tag, a bracelet, speaking, sign language or writing it down on paper or a tablet for those who are nonverbal.

Wessel said historically, people don't want their loved ones labeled as something and refrain from calling the police when they go missing or have a violent meltdown, but under the Americans with Disabilities Act, law enforcement has a responsibility to make reasonable accommodations for those individuals.

“If you’re trying to hide the fact that you have a disability — which is certainly your right — some of your actions and interactions may appear suspicious to us because that’s what we look for and train for," he said.

The disability training is part of the Crisis Intervention Training presented by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Region 1 Behavioral Health Board. Since 2016, training sessions have been developed for first-responders, parents and caregivers and for teens and adults with disabilities. More than 10 North Idaho agencies have received the training, which is conducted several times a year.

Info: www.panhandleautismsociety.org, www.thearc.org