It's hardly a secret that policing has been an enormously controversial issue, particularly over the last decade. 

Members of marginalized communities in particular often feel that police have it out for them, or are more likely to resort to violence when interacting with them than with people who do not come from marginalized backgrounds- feelings that are backed up by data. Analysis by Vox, for instance, shows that Black Americans are significantly overrepresented in police killings of suspects, and are even more substantially overrepresented in killings of suspects who were unarmed or not attacking an officer. People with disabilities are no exception to this; in fact, a 2016 report by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that although people with disabilities make up between 15 and 20% of all Americans, they account for up to half of all those killed by police. 

Within the disability community, people with mental health diagnoses and developmental disabilities are some of the groups at highest risk of being injured or killed by police officers. In 2018, at least 21% of all people killed by police had a mental health diagnosis of some kind. Hard data is difficult to come by for people with developmental disabilities, but anecdotal evidence is abundant, perhaps most infamously in the case of Ethan Saylor, who died while being dragged out of a movie theater by police in 2013. Just last week, a grand jury declined to bring charges against officers in the death of Osazie Osagie, a 29 year old autistic black man who was experiencing mental health side effects from a medication and was shot and killed by police in Pennsylvania who were attempting to carry out a " mental health warrant" on him. There have also been a troubling large number of incidents in which Deaf people have been killed by police, as in the 2017 death of Madigel Sanchez in Oklahoma City. These deaths are tragic, upsetting, and very often completely needless, the result of officers acting aggressively and without proper training. The way police departments interact with people with disabilities needs to change.

Here in Massachusetts, we've seen progress on this front, but also some worrying setbacks. Last year 180 MA police chiefs pledged to have their officers take Mental Health First Aid training, and more than 17,000 officers have received training from NAMI Massachusetts on mental health. Despite this, however, concerning issues continue to arise. Last year, 25 year old Anthony Calabro, who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, was shot and killed by police, and 21 year old Harvard student Selorm Ohene was tackled and punched repeatedly by Cambridge police while apparently experiencing a mental health crisis. 
Meanwhile, while many departments have expressed support for changing practices related to mental health and disability, not everyone within law enforcement feels the same way. Last month, the town of Arlington allowed Lt. Rick Pedrini, who is still an executive board member of the Massachusetts Police Association, to return to work. He had been put on administrative suspension after writing a series of vindictive columns in which he said, referring to the very measures which are taught in mental health trainings for police offices ""It's time we forget about 'restraint', 'measured responses', 'procedural justice', 'de-escalation', 'stigma-reduction', and other feel-good BS ... let's meet violence with violence." DPC was also contacted by concerned community members alleging that Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan, an ardent champion of Restorative Justice, which promotes reconciliation between criminal defendants and victims as an alternative to punishment, apparently said during a forum that the practice was not appropriate for people with mental health diagnoses above a certain level of severity. We have not been able to confirm what was said, and we hope that DA Ryan does in fact believe that people with mental health diagnoses should in fact be offered Restorative Justice.

This issue is so ugly, and so painful, that it is tempting to look away, but there have been too many tragedies for any of us to do so. While individual cases can often be difficult to parse, the overall trend is impossible to ignore: when people with disabilities interact with police, they are disproportionately likely to be killed-and for disabled people of color, the risk is particularly, frighteningly high. We must ask more of our police, and we must do more ourselves to change this awful reality. Police violence is a disability rights issue, and our movement must not be silent about it. 

Colin Killick

Deputy Director
DPC

[email protected]