Today, 12 January, is the 10th anniversary of the death of a young man who should not have died as he died. Robert Ethan Saylor of Maryland died on 12 January 2013 at the age of .

Mr. Saylor was 26 years old at the time. He didn't die of natural causes. The circumstances were odd...quite odd. In case you haven’t already guessed, Mr. Saylor had disabilities.

Mr. Saylor was at a movie theater in his wheelchair with his caregiver—he needed a caregiver bacause of his physical and intellectual disabilities—when security guards confronted him. He was watching the movie without having a legitimate ticket. He had watched the film at a previous screening and wanted to see it again.

The events-facts as I know them:

"Ethan," as he was known, went to a theater with a ticket to see a movie. He apparently liked the film a lot;
After seeing it once, he went back in the theater to see it again without a new ticket;
Someone contacted security guards; they were off-duty police officers making $$ on a side hustle;
There was a confrontation between Ethan and the guards, even though Ethan's caregiver warned the officers that he had disabilities and might respond badly to physical force (“manhandling?”);
The guards physically moved Ethan (he was a big guy, 300 pounds plus wheelchair) toward the exit of the theater;
Somewhere in that process, Ethan fell or got knocked over;
Medics came to administer to him because of injuries; they put a tube in his throat so he could breath;
He died. His windpipe was broken.
Lawyers for the guards said that the people who sued on Ethan's behalf could not prove that the guards’ handling of him had broken his windpipe and killed him; they said it might be that the medics’ insertion of the breathing tube broke his windpipe;
Still, Ethan was dead.

If you are a parent, family member, or a special educator, you'll probably understand the circumstances, but you'll be horrified by those circumstances. I know I was, and I still am horrified by them.

Ethn is dead.

I wrote about Mr. Saylor's death on 20 February 2013 (Lloyd, 2013). Previously, I wrote about similar issues, such as when four officers overwhelmed an 11-year old who was armed with a geometry compass (Lloyd, 2006):

Sometimes when police officers interact with children and youths with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, the results concern me, as noted previously in my posts Letter to editors, Law enforcement protection, and Police training recommended ….

There are many others, including the officers who shot Charles Kinsey in Miami, FL, USA in 2016 (Donaghue, 2019). Mr. Kinsey was a teacher assistant protecting a student who was having a "meltdown." They say that Mr. Kinsey was not a target of the police rifles https://web.archive.org/web/20170405155542/http://dcpba.org/ Okay…just an innocent bystander (helping his student?) or collateral damage (“get that kid with a toy truck that’s really a gun?”).

Video showing Kinsey lying on his back, holding his hands in the air and begging officers not to shoot went viral and drew national outrage. Kinsey, a behavioral therapist, had been trying to coax his autistic client, 26-year-old Arnaldo Rios, to return to the group home he had walked away from. A passerby called 911 when they mistook the toy truck Rios was holding for a gun.

[ More: (a) https://web.archive.org/web/20170323084915/http://ebdblog.com/?p=1883; (b) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/when-police-deal-with-people-who-have-mental-health-issues/ ]

The problem

We are in deep here, friends. I can understand how police officers might see a 300-pound man in a wheelchair as threatening. I suspect that they would have enough maneuverability to get away from him. I mean, how fast is he in that chair?

Stephen Greenberg (2013) calls it a “preventable death.” He makes many important points.

Did they think they had to physically coerce him to leave the theater—if that was their thinking? Did they have to handcuff him? Were there other alternatives (e.g., “Hey, Ethan. Your mother's on her way here and then we can all sit down, have a soda, and figure this out calmly. Right?”)?
Wouldn't it be OK to monitor the situation with Mr. Kinsey and his student? What clear threats were there? Would binoculars have shown that the toy truck was not a gun?

Meanwhile, hang on a bit: Isn't this like ethnic and language minority people subjected to maltreatment by police. And imagine if Ethan had been Black and a woman! She would have been even more leary of the guards' assertiveness, no?

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Efforts to educate officers and guards

We all need to get past the approach where we demand immediate compliance from children, youth, and adults. Demands such as "Stop that right now," "Leave her alone, or else," ..."or else," are not productive, especially when addressing individuals with disabilities, and others. Saying the equivalent of "My way or the highway" is very likely to be ineffective, and even counter productive.

But, here's the thing: Ten years ago, Ethan Saylor died while in a confrontation with security guards. Like the loss of others who didn't have to die during police or security interactions, Ethan didn't have to die. In 2016 a teaching assistant was shot. Lots of other incidents are on the record. Way too many.

If we had good training programs for emergency personnel, many of our kids could be saved. I support those efforts. But we need more than those training programs.

We need to calm down. I'll admit that as a teacher, I more than once went for the my-way-or-the-highway approach. I regret doing so. I like to recommend that that's a mistake...that I was wrong in employing it, and that—if we're calmer—we can find better solutions to such situations. I recommend taking the longer view

Who remembers Ethan Saylor' death? We all should. These sorts of events should not occur. This is not football! We are not "at war" with our children and students.

To be sure, we need programs that educate law enforcement officers to approach individuals with disabilities more compassionately, with greater understanding. They should not be fighting with our kids. I know there are efforts by police unions and others to promote more compassionately policing. Let’s hope that they are sensible and effective.

In the larger picture, I hope we can eschew confrontation in favor of conversation, disrespect in favor of discussion, and immediate compliance in favor of caring. Let’s work to get all of the public service organizations regularly including individuals with disabilties in that they help protect them.

Sources

Donaghue, E. (2019, 8 Mach). Unarmed caretaker shot with arms raised testifies in cop's trial. CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-kinsey-unarmed-caretaker-shot-with-arms-raised-testifies-in-florida-police-officer-trial/

Greenberg, S. (2013, November 2012). The preventable death of Ethan Saylor: When three parties are incompetent, tragedy results. Pyschology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/incompetence/201311/the-preventable-death-ethan-saylor

Legal analysis about media and police force. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/clro102&div=2&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals

Lloyd, J. W. (2006, 22 August). More than police preparation needed. EBDBlog. https://web.archive.org/web/20161019204128/http://ebdblog.com/2006/08/more-than-police-preparation-needed/

Lloyd, J. (2013, February 20). How not to treat people with disabilities: They may die in custody. EBDBlog, http://ebdblog.com/2013/02/how-not-to-treat-people-with-disabilities-they-may-die-in-custody/ available via the wonderful Archive.org at https://web.archive.org/web/20170206191138/http://ebdblog.com/2013/02/how-not-to-treat-people-with-disabilities-they-may-die-in-custody/

Special Education Today by John Wills Lloyd

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