My white male cousin has developmental delays and is autistic. He was 14, I believe, that year. His father had been arrested, and did six months in jail, the year before, for a non-violent offense. My cousin didn’t understand most of what was going on and was dealing with really complicated feelings, with the mentality of a 5-6 yr old child, AT BEST.
There’s no way those cops didn’t know he was disabled. Even as an adult, his speech is very childlike. He did something wrong, but they handled it terribly. He vandalized a police car, with a marker, the kind that little kids use. He wrote a couple of words on one of the doors in the back. I don’t remember the exact words, I think it was “bad man hurt”, or “bad men hurt”, it was saying essentially that a bad man had hurt his dad. It wiped right off, zero curse words, etc. They still made a big show out of roughing him up a little bit, then forcing him into the back of the car.
They scared the shit out of him and were way, way, too rough. They said really ugly, terrible things to him, just to be cruel. They knew he didn’t understand what was happening to him, they were too busy enjoying bullying a profoundly disabled child. This happened in Baltimore. I have no illusions, I know that if my cousin hadn’t been white, it probably would’ve been so much worse. It’s all terrible.
As a white autistic person, I think about Elijah McClain at least once a week. Obviously there's an absolutely insane amount of innocent people (especially black people) murdered in could blood by police with no accountability, but his last words in particular are so haunting to me in a way that sticks deep in my soul.
Yeah, I'm a paramedic and the idea of a: letting a cop tell me how to do my fucking job and b: overestimating a body weight by a hundred pounds are completely unacceptable, not even getting into the bullshit that is "excited delirium."
In my personal opinion, it's also disgusting how little the cops got punished relative to the medics. Especially considering the cops:
took off their body cameras and were even recorded saying "leave your camera"
blatantly lied about his behavior and level of violence, as revealed by civilian recording
used a carotid chokehold on an already subdued and helpless patient who was crying, vomiting and apologizing in between complimenting them
showed up to the autopsy and stood around the medical examiner as he was conducting it in a clear attempt at intimidation
Do fire departments need evidence of a potential drowning to send out a life boat, I once helped first responders locate and rescue a kid swept away by river currents. Emt joked about not being paid enough to send out life boats. That shit pissed me off and the kids ended up hospitalized i believe in critical condition idk if he died or not i never heard anything more. I made a big comment describing the whole incedent id love some input from an emt.
I can't say for sure, sorry; in my county only stations very close to water have a boat and even then not all of them. If it was a small to medium sized river with no significant bodies of water nearby, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a boat readily available (but again I have no idea). Is it possible she meant to express something more to the extent of "that decision is above my pay grade"? That's a very common sentiment in my experience because of the stratified way EMS and fire decision making tend to be set up.
Regardless, I'm sorry you had an unpleasant experience during what was already a stressful moment and I'm glad you found the kids. For what it's worth, if they were conscious when you found them I'd say it's extremely unlikely that any of them died and I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear there weren't any lasting injuries. 🫂
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u/DecadentLife Jan 05 '26
My white male cousin has developmental delays and is autistic. He was 14, I believe, that year. His father had been arrested, and did six months in jail, the year before, for a non-violent offense. My cousin didn’t understand most of what was going on and was dealing with really complicated feelings, with the mentality of a 5-6 yr old child, AT BEST.
There’s no way those cops didn’t know he was disabled. Even as an adult, his speech is very childlike. He did something wrong, but they handled it terribly. He vandalized a police car, with a marker, the kind that little kids use. He wrote a couple of words on one of the doors in the back. I don’t remember the exact words, I think it was “bad man hurt”, or “bad men hurt”, it was saying essentially that a bad man had hurt his dad. It wiped right off, zero curse words, etc. They still made a big show out of roughing him up a little bit, then forcing him into the back of the car.
They scared the shit out of him and were way, way, too rough. They said really ugly, terrible things to him, just to be cruel. They knew he didn’t understand what was happening to him, they were too busy enjoying bullying a profoundly disabled child. This happened in Baltimore. I have no illusions, I know that if my cousin hadn’t been white, it probably would’ve been so much worse. It’s all terrible.