Police Awareness of Disability

This July, students at Reach Every Voice Summer Institute spent a week learning about advocacy and collaborating to advocate for a cause that gets them fired up. Over the next few blogs, we will share students' advocacy projects with you. Please share away and help these voices be heard!

Today: Zach & Owen capture a conversation about Police Awareness of Disability

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Interview with Owen and Zach: Police Awareness of Disability

We want to say that the police need to know how to talk to people with unusual behaviors. Owen: I was in Boulder, Colorado. I went for a walk without my mom or dad. I went into someone’s house because I wanted food. A man came out and began following me.

Zach: Why?

Owen: He wanted to protect me. Then I kept walking toward the school. Then I walked back to the house. Next, the police came and they took the man and me to mom and daddy. Yes in Colorado I wanted to go out. I want people to understand that I did not want to hurt any person in town. Zach: Did people think you were hurting others?

Owen: Police thought I was going to get in trouble. Zach: Why?

Owen: They thought I was lost. I was not lost. Zach: What made the police believe you were lost?

Owen: I was going to get food.

Zach: Where were you going to get food?

Owen: To the house.

Zach: What house were you going to?

Owen: I don’t know.

Zach: You did not know the house? That sounds lost to me.

Owen: I not going to hurt people.

Zach: How did the police treat you?

Owen: Young.

Zach: Did the police ever get aggressive with you?

Owen: No.

Zach: Is there something you want to say to the police?

Owen: That they need to be more hopeful to people like me. That they are mean. Zach: Police are insufficiently trained. They need proper guidelines.

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